Jesse's Avanade Blog

Microsoft Surface Retail Demo Released!

2008-03-11T19:53:00Z

Today, Accenture and Avanade announced the availability of their first Microsoft Surface showcase application. Check the press release for full details. This is exciting news because it is Accenture and Avanade's first ever Surface application and it's also the very project I've been working on for the past coupon months! Currently there's no photos or videos of the application available on the web, but there should be some coming soon. For a sneak peak, check out Ben's blog post.

More on my experience with the Surface in later posts!

Update: Check out video for a quick demo

Cannot locate resource "Window1.xaml"

2007-12-17T19:31:10Z

I ran into this strange error today and it's strange because both the error and the solution has nothing to do with "Window1.xaml". Typically, this is the message you receive if you misnamed "Window1.xaml" in App.xaml's StartupUri attribute. That was not the case for me today as everything checks out so something else was going on.

I was able to find the solution on this MSDN forum post. Seems like many people ran across this while trying to run downloaded samples on their local workstations. The resolution? Add a space to App.xaml , remove it, then rebuild. Strange solution but it worked. I suppose this is a bug in the code .NET 3.0 generates and a simple rebuild on your local workstation fixes it.

This is in VS 2005, not sure if this has been resolved in VS 2008 yet.

Avanade @ LA Works

2007-06-05T06:03:31Z

Fellow SoCal Avanauts took time out this past Saturday to participate in LA Works, where we were tasked to finish painting some of the murals on classroom buildings in Western Avenue Elementary School in Los Angeles. My second time at LA Works, and lots of fun as usual.

06-02-2007 - LA Works

Technology Showcase @ UCI by Avanade/ACM

2007-02-28T00:23:41Z

Greg and I presented a Technology Showcase for ACM members last week on the UC Irvine campus. Aside from introducing Avanade to the UCI students, we wanted to get students excited about Microsoft's new technologies.

We showed demos of WPF as part of .NET Framework 3.0 and ASP.NET AJAX. We really wanted to emphasize how easy these frameworks and tools allow developers to focus on solving problems. At the end of our presentation, we gave away tech books on WPF and AJAX. I believe the books are in good hands and will be put to good use!

The one thing I regret about this demo is that I forgot to pray to the demo gods. Huge mistake. Never underestimate the live demo! The projector had a tough time displaying WPF. Luckily, I was still able to show some of the more polished apps like NY Times Reader, Otto Store, as well as the Ch9 Grand Piano WPF/E example.

I also went through a quick example of using (and switching between) Expression Blend and Visual Studio in creating a WPF video player. Mostly I followed tutorials from ContentPresenter.com, which has some cool tutorials that are easy to follow. Later on, I showed the students a version of the video player with WPF Interactive 3D.

Jan 07 Avanade Flyback Friday

2007-01-18T06:48:00Z

We had our West Region Flyback meeting last weekend at Carlsbad. Good time as usual. But just not quite the same as Vegas :P

Here are some photos I snapped from the resort/event:

WPF Yahoo Messenger Video Demo

2007-01-09T17:34:57Z

In time for CES, Yahoo announces the new Yahoo Messenger optimized for Vista in WPF! No downloadable version yet, but the video demo is very impressive.

Skype 2.2 Beta for Windows Mobile Released

2006-12-13T18:37:47Z

Get Skype on your Windows Mobile device! Checkout the screenshots.

See list of devices supported here

Official Vista Gadgets for Office 2007 Released

2006-12-06T19:32:37Z

Over at Ryan Gregg's blog, PM for Microsoft Office, he announced the release of the first two official Office gadgets. I've used Office 2007 since beta and I think one of the best new features is the To Do sidebar. With these gadgets, it brings the awesome To Do sidebar to your Vista desktop!

Links:

Outlook Upcoming Appointments

Outlook Tasks

Gadget Gallery

Portable Apps

2006-12-04T22:27:18Z

Take your favorite apps on the go! Here's a reason to get a portable USB flash drive if you don't already have one. PortableApps, provides slimmed down versions of your favorite desktop apps that can run solely on your USB flash drive. The list of apps that are offered right now include Firefox, Gaim, and Open Office, just to name a few. Check here for the full list. If your company does not allow you to install chat programs or Firefox, this is definitely for you.

Download the Suite if you want all of the recommended apps and space is not a concern on your flash drive. I personally got the Lite version (still 30mb) and got Firefox, Gaim, and ClaimWin (antivirus) installed on my 128mb I got laying around. The total disk footprint is about 45mb, which is fine for me since I mainly use my flash drive to move single documents/powerpoints around.

Gmail "+" tip you would want to know

2006-11-07T05:42:00Z

I've recently discovered this gmail feature where it allows you to basically unlimited number of free email addresses to use when you sign up for various service or junk websites or just to track who is causing you all the spam you are getting.

Some basic built in gmail features I knew was that gmail does not account for any dots (".") in email addresses. This means if you have first.last@gmail.com any emails sent to with the dot (".") anywhere (i.e first.last@gmail.com or fi.rstlast@gmail.com) or even w/o it (i.e. firstlast@gmail.com), would go to the same original address.

Now to take that even further, gmail users can add "+" to the end of your gmail user name and add any text/description/tag to your gmail email address.

So following the example I started, all of the following are valid gmail email addresses that would be sent to first.last@gmail.com :

Hopefully you get the idea. So you can dump that junk email account that you use to sign up for stuff and just use your favorite gmail account and just filter out emails based on the address you used to sign up for stuff and delete them as you need space. Like I said earlier, this is a great way to track who is spamming your account!

blog = new Blog();

2006-11-07T05:38:00Z

First post! I am an Avanade Solutions Developer in Southern California. My work revolves around the .NET Framework, BizTalk, ASP.NET, and SQL Server. I will post about technical musings, discoveries, tips, and new gadgets I acquire from time to time.