Presentations and WebCasts –

New Video & Audio based information for developers is located at these links:

 

http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdntv/archive.aspx

http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowForum.aspx?ForumID=14  

http://msdn.microsoft.com/theshow/

http://msdn.microsoft.com/dotnetrocks/

 

MSDN TV: Late Binding in Visual Basic – Paul Vick and Erik Meijer discuss the role that late binding plays in Visual Basic, allowing a more dynamic style of programming than is possible in some other .NET languages. They also show some future ideas for how late binding might make programming against data such as XML radically easier.

Hotfixes, Patches, Updates, Service Packs —

DirectX9.0c Redistributable (October 2005) – Multilingual – This download provides the DirectX 9.0c end-user multi-languaged redistributable that developers can include with their product. The redistributable license agreement covers the terms under which developers may use the Redistributable. For full details please review the DirectX SDK EULA.txt and DirectX Redist.txt files located in the license directory.

This package is localized into Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Czech, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Russian, Spanish, Swedish, and English.

Windows CE 5.0 Platform Builder Update – KB910869 – Fixes made in this update:
Component: DirectX
Description: Launching applications after playing video may result in an error.

Windows CE 5.0 Platform Builder Update – KB910643 – Fixes made in this update:
Component: DirectX
Description: Playback of WMA files may consume large amount of memory.

Australian Daylight Savings Changes for Microsoft Products for the Year 2006 – The Commonwealth Games are scheduled to be held during March 2006 in Melbourne Australia. Several Australian states including New South Wales, Victoria, Australian Capital Territory, South Australia and Tasmania, have changed the Daylight Savings transition end dates to the first Sunday of April 2006.

Daylight savings end for 2005/2006
For the Year 2006 only, the published Daylight Savings end transition dates (as at 14th September, 2005) for each of the states of Australia are:
Victoria 27/03/2006 To 2/4/2006
ACT 27/03/2006 To 2/4/2006
NSW 27/03/2006 To 2/4/2006
Tasmania 27/03/2006 To 2/4/2006
South Australia 27/03/2006 To 2/4/2006


Note: Clocks are advanced at 2am by 1 hour on start day to become Summer Time.
Clocks are wound back at 3am by 1 hour at end day to become Standard Time.

The change to Daylight Savings will affect the transition settings for the following time zone rules:

(GMT + 10:00) Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney
(GMT + 10:00) Hobart
(GMT+09:30) Adelaide


Currently supported versions of products shipped by Microsoft have Daylight Savings transition dates that do not cater for the abovementioned change. These products include:
Microsoft Windows ME
Microsoft Windows 2000
Microsoft Windows Server 2003
Microsoft Windows XP
Microsoft Windows CE / Mobile
Microsoft Exchange server 2000
Microsoft Exchange Server 2003

Tools and Apps –

Microsoft CRM 3.0 SDK – The Microsoft CRM 3.0 SDK is for developers, system customizers and report writers. It contains the following sections:

·  Server Programming Guide – A guide for developers writing server side code, custom business logic, integration modules, workflow assemblies and more. This guide provides an architectural overview of Microsoft CRM, the entity model, security model, Web services, and sample code.

·  Client Programming Guide – A guide for developers customizing the Web client or the Microsoft CRM client for Outlook, including scripting, integration of custom Web pages, and sample code.

·  Report Writers Guide - A guide for developers writing reports for Microsoft CRM using Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services Report Designer.

CLR Managed Debugger (mdbg) Sample – To build and run the CLR Managed Debugger (mdbg) sample you will need to have the .NET Framework 2.0 SDK (release build – version 2.0.50727) installed on your system. This is included with Visual Studio 2005 and the Visual Studio Express Editions. If you do not have Visual Studio 2005, you can download and install Visual C# 2005 Express Edition to build the sample. In both Visual Studio 2005 and Visual C# 2005 Express Edition, you can build mdbg using the solution file included with the mdbg source. Additionally, the sample can be built using nmake (included in the .Net Framework SDK) and the makefile script.

Case Studies, Guides and Whitepapers –

Microsoft CRM 3.0 Implementation Guide – This Implementation Guide provides the information required for a successful Microsoft CRM implementation into your business. This guide addresses the planning, installing (both hardware and software), pre-deployment testing, and operating tasks for the maintenance of the Microsoft CRM system.

This guide is written for the computer system administrator. This guide also assumes that any organization implementing Microsoft CRM software will have the services of an independent software vendor (ISV) or value-added reseller who is partnered with Microsoft and will help you with the entire process of implementing and maintaining your Microsoft CRM installation. Because of this assumption, there are references in this guide to these "partners" who are expected to provide various services to you.

Microsoft KPIUtil.exe tool for Microsoft Office Business Scorecard Manager 2005 – KPIUtil.exe is a tool that allows users to connect to both a Microsoft® Office Business Scorecard Manager 2005 server and a Microsoft SQL Server™ 2005 Analysis Services server to do the following:

  • Generate SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services key performance indicators (KPIs) from Business Scorecard Manager KPIs.
  • Generate Business Scorecard Manager KPIs from SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services KPIs.
  • Save a configuration file that contains parameters (including the connection information to the SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services server and the Business Scorecard Manager server) that you entered by using KPIUtil.exe. You can use the saved configuration file either to generate KPIs from a command prompt or to open the configuration file in KPIUtil.exe at a later time.

 

Cheers!