Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 ALM tools and Microsoft Project Server 2010 We would like to invite you to attend any of our upcoming live workshops in September!  These web workshops will provide you with in-depth exposure into the different Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 ALM Tools with separate webcasts covering the capabilities of Microsoft Project Server 2010.   September Workshops Using Lab Management in your Application Lifecycle Load Testing in your Application Lifecycle Solving…(read more)

Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 ALM tools and Microsoft Project Server 2010 We would like to invite you to attend any of our upcoming live workshops in September!  These web workshops will provide you with in-depth exposure into the different Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 ALM Tools with separate webcasts covering the capabilities of Microsoft Project Server 2010.   September Workshops Using Lab Management in your Application Lifecycle Load Testing in your Application Lifecycle Solving…(read more)

How are creative CIOs dealing with the consumerization of IT and managing the use of technology to bridge the intersection of work and personal life across generations, support consumer and enterprise requirements, and provide a common binding agent between employees, partners, and customers? Microsoft CIO Tony Scott considers these questions in this CIO Network video blog.

(Please visit the site to view this video)

What might traditional lending libraries and cutting-edge computer labs have in common? Learn about Microsoft’s Redmond Ridge, a virtual lab environment that is helping Microsoft IT be more energy efficient and environmentally sustainable while driving cultural change.

(Please visit the site to view this video)

Windows Phone 7 “Mango” adds a lot of great new features to Live Tiles.  An app can now create Secondary Tiles that are controlled programmatically and deep link directly into the app.  One feature that I could not find, however, is the ability to control the appearance of text on a tile.  This seems to be particularly important given that the background of the tile can now be updated to display additional information.  It is possible, however, to generate a tile on the fly and display it, thus giving greater control of the appearance of the tile.

The general process we will follow:

1. Create a WriteableBitmap
2. Grab images from our app Content (optional)
3. Create and format some UI Elements to add to our Bitmap
4. Build our Bitmap how we like it
5. Save our Bitmap to our Phone
6. Create our Secondary Tile and display our Bitmap on the front or back of the Tile.

As the basis of my app, I’ve created a solution with a content item I want to display on my Tile …

I create a WriteableBitmap of the correct dimensions and a UI Element to host the Bitmap …

var bmp = new WriteableBitmap(173, 173);

var logo = new BitmapImage(new Uri("/Content/dpe_green.png", UriKind.Relative));
var img = new Image { Source = logo };

// Force the bitmapimage to load it's properties so the transform will work
 logo.CreateOptions = BitmapCreateOptions.None;

The size of a Live Tile is 173 x 173.  A digression here.  The little trick I pulled with logo.CreateOptions.  Normally, the image will not be loaded until it is displayed.  It’s a Silverlight thang.  But, I want to load the image immediately so that I can understand its size and use that information in my render transform.  Setting the property to BitmapCreateOptions.None forces the image to load immediately and thus the PixelHeight and PixelWidth properties become available.  Note, this has performance implications especially if you are loading lots of images.

Next, we create the UI Elements that we want to push into our WriteableBitmap using the Render method.  We will need to format our Tile to our liking.  We will also need to add our image to our bitmap and position it properly.  In order to do that, we will need to use Transforms.  I’m lazy and uncreative, so I will use a TranslateTransform, but the idea is the same even if you use a MatrixTransform.

var bl = new TextBlock();
bl.Foreground = new SolidColorBrush(Colors.White);
bl.FontSize = 24.0;
bl.Text = "Hello Tile!";

bmp.Render(bl, null);

var tt = new TranslateTransform();
tt.X = 173 - logo.PixelWidth;
tt.Y = 173 - logo.PixelHeight;

bmp.Render(img, tt);

bmp.Invalidate();

The fist thing I do is create a TextBlock.  This will allow me to style my text in any way I want.  It gives me more flexibiltiy than setting the Tile’s BackContent.  We set a few properties to get the text to look the way we want it and push it into the bitmap by calling Render.  Next we setup the transform.  This is where we needed to know the size of the image we loaded.  We push that into the bitmap calling Render and passing our transform.  We then signal the Bitmap that it needs to redraw itself.  (When all else fails, Invalidate the Bitmap ).

Next is a little bit of complexity with IsolatedStorage.  In addition to providing local storage for our application, on the Phone, IsolatedStorage has some shared areas.  Specifically, the Shared/ShellContent section.  We need to store our Bitmap in this area in order to be used by a Tile.

using (var store = IsolatedStorageFile.GetUserStoreForApplication())
{
    var filename = "/Shared/ShellContent/testtile.jpg";
    using (var st = new IsolatedStorageFileStream(filename, FileMode.Create, FileAccess.Write, store))
    {
        bmp.SaveJpeg(st, 173, 173, 0, 100);
    }
}

It’s not hard to do that .. we just do the standard IsolatedStorage process and use our Media Extension Methods to save off our JPEG.  If you run this, you can now see, using the IsolatedStorage Explorer Tool that our JPEG is in the correct place to be used by our Live Tile.  NB: A Live Tile cannot access an application’s IsolatedStorage!

Last but not least, we build our Tile …

var tile = new StandardTileData();

tile.BackgroundImage = new Uri("isostore:/Shared/ShellContent/testtile.jpg", UriKind.Absolute);
tile.BackTitle = "Back";

ShellTile.Create(new Uri("/MainPage.xaml?DefaultTitle=FromSecondaryTile", UriKind.Relative), tile ); 

You will note that we need to use the isostore URI scheme to access the data in the shared locations.  The URI in this case that the Tile is created with is the location within your app that will be launched when the Tile is clicked by the user.  You will note that you can pass parameters if desired.

That’s it … sorry about the goofyness of my Tile …

A little bit of complexity, but the trade-off is a lot of control over how your Live Tiles look.

When configuring the Workflow solution for Duet Enterprise using the following command lineDuetConfig.exe /ConfigureSolution "Workflow" /webappurl http://duetserver.com:80

You may encounter an error similar to the following:

“Error: Unable to configure solution.
One or more dependent entities [WorkflowUserSubscription, SAP.Office.DuetEnterprise.Workflow, 1.0.2.0] is missing.”

Additionally, if you manually use STSADM to deploy the package you’ll notice that the assembly version of the workflow assembly in the workflow solution WSP is version 1.0.1.0.

The following entry will be in the BDC model imported from the SAP system:

Entity Namespace="SAP.Office.DuetEnterprise.Workflow" Version="1.0.1.0" EstimatedInstanceCount="10000"

Cause:

There is a version mismatch between the installed SAP and SharePoint implementations. The SAP implementation was installed using the Duet Enterprise 1.01 bits to install while the SharePoint was configured using the Duet Enterprise 1.02 bits.

Resolution:

The corrective action is to upgrade the SAP installation to SP2 (Available from SAP) and re-import BCS definitions into SharePoint, which should fix the version checks done during workflow install.

Hola

¿Qué tal las vacaciones?

Espero que bien. Para empezar poco a poco, un post rápido para entrar en calentamiento .

En entornos con Office 2003 en cliente puede pasar que el indicador de presencia de OCS 2007 aparezca offline en vez de aparecer con su correspondiente status en los sitios de MOSS 2007. Pues bueno normalmente esta problemática tiene una rápida solución, siguiendo los siguientes pasos:

1. Haga clic en Inicio, haga clic en Ejecutar, escriba regedit y, a continuación, presione ENTRAR.

2. Busque la siguiente subclave del Registro: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office.0\Common\PersonaMenu

3. Haga clic en Editar, seleccione nuevo y, a continuación, haga clic en valor DWORD.

4. Escriba QueryServiceForStatus y, a continuación, haga clic en Aceptar.

5. Haga doble clic en QueryServiceForStatus, escriba 2 y, a continuación, haga clic en Aceptar.

6. Haga clic en Editar, seleccione nuevo y, a continuación, haga clic en valor DWORD.

7. Tipo EnableDynamicPresence y, a continuación, haga clic en Aceptar.

8. Haga doble clic en EnableDynamicPresence, escriba 1 y, a continuación, haga clic en Aceptar.

9. Salir del Editor del registro.

10. Limpiar la cache de Internet Explorer y cerrar cualquier instancia de Office 2003 (Outlook 2003, word 2003 etc) y el mismo Internet Explorer.

Acto seguido notaréis como al entrar en las páginas de SharePoint, que contengan usuarios, el indicador de presencia aparece en su estado correspondiente.

Pues sin más dilación, un saludo a todos y saludos a Rodrigo Garcia seguidor del Blog, con el cual estuve trabajando en resolver esta incidencia.

Gracias.

Un saludo a todos.

Héctor Calvarro Martín. SharePoint Dev. Microsoft Support Engineer for DEV EMEA

The independent security research and testing organization, NSS Labs, just released two reports that say Internet Explorer leads the field in protection against socially engineered malware, specifically fake links that you might see in an email or on your social networking site. 

 According to the report, Internet Explorer caught 96% of this kind of malware.

Source: NSS Labs, August 2011 – Global Socially Engineered Malware Protection

Read the full report. (PDF)

More information about how Internet Explorer 9 protects your computer from malware. 

Keep an eye out on the 1^st of every month for new and innovative partner stories via MicroGems- first instalment 1^st September. Each month our intrepid DPE Evangelist and reporter Gemma Yussuf will go ‘once more unto the breach’, bringing you cutting edge partner stories. We want to educate our community on the new and hottest Microsoft technology and how it can be exploited to enhance your application.

• Follow us on Twitter here
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If you are interested in telling your story to our developer community, please contact us at isvstories@microsoft.com

Living in Tampa we’re surrounded by Heroes. Folks from MacDill in South Tampa are tough enough, but CENTCOM and SOCOM have significant presences. I heard it said once, “There be giants here, and they’re down at MacDill”. So it makes it tough to call devs ‘heroes’.

But as much as an app can earn a Developer Hero title, Jason Milgram‘s new Windows Phone application has earned a hero title. Jason produced a Medical Shot Tracker for Windows Phone. Track My Shots is a Windows Phone app that helps ease the log-keeping of patients with multiple sclerosis, diabetes and other conditions requiring frequent injections.

Here’s the link to the story on Microsoft Platform Ready: http://phone.microsoftplatformready.com/HeroesDetail.aspx?heroId=11  And this is a link to the application home page: http://trackmyshots.com

Jason Milgram, the CEO of East Region BizSpark One Startup Linxter, Windows Phone 7 Developer Hero of the Week. Congrats. Also not bad that Jason is a former army type. Double hero on him.

If you get a chance, check out the application and share the links.