Day 2 at Microsoft PDC09; Why Chrome OS Will Fail; Windows Azure is the Future of Microsoft

Top News Stories
Amazing and Hopeful Day 2 of Microsoft PDC09 (Examiner.com)
There is plenty to report on day two of the PDC09 conference in Los Angeles. Wednesday’s lineup started with a nice experiential reference to a developer’s Publisher download in a hotel room that took 7 hours, then failed to load. Nervous laughter followed, and much explanation about why those issues are important for developers to address in their upcoming applications development.

PDC 2009: What Have We Learned this Week? (BetaNews)
It ended up being a somewhat different PDC conference than we had anticipated, and even to a certain extent, than we were led to believe. Maybe this was due in part to a little intentional misdirection to help generate surprise, but in the end, the big stories here in Los Angeles this week were more evolutionary than revolutionary. That was actually quite all right with attendees I spoke with this week, most of whom are just fine with one less thing to turn their worlds upside down. It's tough enough for many of these good people to hold onto their jobs every week.

Security in Windows 7: Windows Filtering Platform (PC Magazine)
Firewall utilities have to hook into Windows 7 at a very low level, and Microsoft's programmers absolutely hate that. Certain Microsoft technologies like PatchGuard, found in 64-bit editions of Windows (64-bit Windows 7 has some security advantages over 32-bit Windows 7), block both malefactors and would-be protectors from access to the kernel. Yet Microsoft itself hasn't provided the level of security that third-party security software offers. What to do?

Microsoft Azure Walks a Thin Blue Line (GigaOm)
With Azure, Microsoft is trying to strike a balance between giving customers the ease of a platform as a service and the customization that power users need to build tailored  applications — both in-house and in the public Azure cloud. After the Redmond giant’s developer conference this week, where it detailed more of its plans, it became clear that Azure is striving to be a general-purpose cloud offering for enterprises that doesn’t make developers sweat the small stuff or compromise on bigger things.

Why Windows Azure is the Future of Microsoft (and Enterprise Software as Well) (Enterprise Irregulars)
One of the advantages of a being a relatively ancient industry analyst is the ability to look back on over 25 years of innovation and spot the real paradigm shifts amidst the updates, revisions, and otherwise mundane changes that attempt, but never deliver, something radically new.

Google Releases Chrome OS to Open Source (eWeek)
Google released the Chrome Operating System, an alternative to Microsoft Windows and Apple's Mac OS X, to open source for developers, but said end users will not be able to use the Web operating system until late 2010. During a demo, Google's Sundar Pichai showed how Chrome OS booted up on an Asus Eee PC netbook in 7 seconds, with 3 more seconds to log onto an application. Chrome OS had the look and feel of the Chrome Web browser, which has 40 million regular users. Chrome OS was designed with speed, simplicity and security in mind.

Why Chrome OS Will Fail -- Big Time (InfoWorld)
The Chrome OS is here -- sort of. This week, Google was kind of enough to give the world a sneak peek at its nascent desktop operating system. And after months of speculation (and more than a few bogus screenshot galleries), I can finally say that I've seen the future ... and it's not Chrome OS.

Windows Mobile Gets Free Office Beta (Windows for Devices)
Microsoft has released a free beta version of Office Mobile 2010. The software provides Windows Mobile 6.5 users with the ability to edit Microsoft Office documents while preserving formatting, automatically sync documents to a SharePoint server, and control PowerPoint presentations via a Bluetooth phone, the company says.

Around the Blogosphere
Update Center is Now Live (Microsoft SharePoint Team Blog)
The Update Center for Microsoft Office, Office Servers, and Related Products went live today, which will enable customers to find an up-to-date list of all of our Service Pack, Public Update, and Cumulative Update releases in one location. While the SharePoint team blog has posted Cumulative Update package information in the past, this will be available on the Update Center moving forward.

SharePoint Isn’t Just for Servers Anymore (Shared Points for SharePoint)
On SPC, Matthew Burnet, Application Developer for the SharePoint team, had a session on how you can use Windows 7 as a development platform for SharePoint 2010. Here are some key points from the session. If you are doing any development, testing or deployment of SharePoint, I think you will find this most useful!

The Notion of Associations and the External Item Picker (Microsoft Business Connectivity Services Team Blog)
In real world problems there is a frequent need to find related or complimentary information for a specific business entity. For example, while looking at a customer profile, I would love to see additional information about it such as what are the latest orders placed by that customer, or the top 5 products it usually buys or any other relevant information for it, you name it. Business Connectivity Services supports the ability to associate two External Content Types (ECTs) to support such scenarios. This blog post introduces the concept of associations in BCS, how the concept is materialized in the product UI and a quick example on how you can define a simple association between two ECTs using SharePoint Designer 2010 (SPD).

Open XML: One Year In (Microsoft Office 2010 Engineering)
As you’ve probably heard, this is a big week for Microsoft’s Business Division. Earlier this week we announced the public availability of Microsoft Office 2010 Beta. Have you ever wanted to co-author a document with your team in Word? Have you ever wanted to analyze tons of data at once in Excel? Have you ever wanted to push the limits of multimedia in your PowerPoint presentations? If so, check out the Beta.

Installation Notice for the SharePoint Server Public Beta on Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 and Microsoft Windows 7 (Bill Baer)
If you will be installing the SharePoint Server Public Beta on Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 or Microsoft Windows 7 you will need to download and install an update from http://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/Downloads/DownloadDetails.aspx?DownloadID=23806  to resolve an issue that occurs in Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 when provisioning Service Applications or when accessing pages that make service calls.  These operations will result in an error "System.Configuration.ConfigurationErrorsException: Unrecognized attribute 'allowInsecureTransport'. Note that attribute names are case-sensitive. (C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\WebClients\<Service Area>\client.config line <Line Number>)".

FYI – Interesting Little Bug in VS 2010 Beta 2 When Working with the SharePoint 2010 Silverlight Client Object Model (Andrew Connell)
I’ve been struggling trying to work with the new SharePoint 2010 Silverlight client object model on a new environment I setup. This has SharePoint 2010 Beta 2 and Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2… nothing special, that’s it (along with the dependencies such as SQL Server and everything they require).

SharePoint - Knock Three Times (Andy Dale SharePoint Blog)
I used to look forward to Fridays, but that is different this week after my rear-end (well, my car's rear end) has been bumped three times in recent weeks. At least it isn't Friday 13th tomorrow (which is considered unlucky in the UK), it was last Friday though when I was banged from behind for the third Friday in four weeks. Ok the middle one was me reversing into my Office Talk colleague, Frank Fauld's car. But not all bad things come in threes and in this week's blog I am going to show you a classic SharePoint 1-2-3.

Around Bamboo Nation
Save 10% on All Bamboo Suites for a Limited Time! (The Bamboo Team Blog)
One of my favorite things to do before the holidays is to visit blackfriday.info where they post all the cool deals at big box retailers like Best Buy and Target.  Sometimes a deal has been so enticing I have actually been one of those crazy people who brave the malls the day after Thanksgiving.  Luckily for Bamboo customers, obsessive website checking and getting up in the pre-dawn AM is not necessary to get a good deal this holiday season.  Now through December 31st, we are offering a 10% discount off of any our three Suites: Project Management, Administration, and even Ultimate.  What's even better, for our Ultimate customers, we are throwing in our much anticipated workflow tool, Bamboo Conductor for a limited time only - it will not be part of any our Suites in 2010.

SharePoint Job Listings**
K2 Black Pearl/SharePoint Developer - Neenah, WI
Assist with implementation of K2 workflow technology in our production environment; integrating K2 with the existing SharePoint environment and SAP environment; and convert existing workflows into K2 workflows.  Develop documentation, job aids or other methods to assist with future workflow migration efforts.

SharePoint Architect - Aurora, IL
As a SharePoint Solutions Architect, you will demonstrate the SharePoint technical leadership and expertise our customers rely on Glenture to provide. Your strong analysis, solution design and development, integration, and implementation skills using SharePoint 2010, MOSS 2007, and WSS will be used as you lead envisioning, architecture, and design session You will be part of the SharePoint Services Practice, and we’ll look to you to contribute to the development of strategies, policies, and best practices to continue building the premier SharePoint practice in the Midwest.

Microsoft Updates
You run a crawl for some Lists or Surveys, and you receive access violation error messages (Microsoft Support)
You configure some Lists or Surveys whose Item-level Permissions of Read access setting is set to "Only their own." However, when you run a crawl for these Lists or Surveys, you receive the following access violation error messages.

Bamboo Partner Events*
December 3, New York, New York, SharePoint Winter Expo 2009 - DataLan
December 9, Online, SharePoint for Enterprise Content Management - DataLan
December 10, Iselin, New Jersey, SharePoint for Intranets, Extranets, and Public Websites - DataLan

January 14, Online, Boost Business Results with SharePoint - StreamLogic

SharePoint Events**
November 21, Birmingham, Alabama, SharePoint Saturday
November 21, Phoenix, Arizona, SharePoint Saturday
November 21, Richmond, Virginia, SharePoint Saturday
November 24, Online, Bamboo SharePoint Project Management Central Webinar (Sprache des Webinar: deutsch) (German Language)

December 3, Online, Bamboo 101 - Calendar Plus Web Part Webinar
December 3, New York, New York, SharePoint Winter Expo 2009
December 5, Washington, DC, SharePoint Saturday
December 9, Online, SharePoint for Enterprise Content Management
December 10, Online, Bamboo 101 - Chart Plus Web Part Webinar
December 10, Iselin, New Jersey, SharePoint for Intranets, Extranets, and Public Websites
December 12, Kansas City, Kansas, SharePoint Saturday
December 17, Online, Bamboo SharePoint Project Management Central Webinar (Sprache des Webinar: deutsch) (German Language)

January 9, Virginia Beach, Virginia, SharePoint Saturday
January 14, Online, Boost Business Results with SharePoint

* If you are a Bamboo Partner please contact Janet Goda (janet.goda@bamboosolutions.com) to have your event included in the Bamboo Partner Events.

** Please contact Chris Dooley (chris.dooley@bamboosolutions.com) to include your event  or job listing in SharePoint Daily.

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