Friday, May 30, 2008

Keeping Up with the Joneses: Windows Mobile 6.1's New Upgrades

With their Windows Mobile 6.1 release, Microsoft attempts to keep their position in an increasingly competitive market. Find out how these new improvements can benefit you.

Windows Mobile: Communicating with the Outside World

Explore the various options available on the .NET Compact Framework that allow your apps to connect with the outside world.

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Learning Windows Communication Foundation course (16th June 2008)

If you have not enrolled in the Learning Windows Communication Foundation course yet, be sure to do so this week as the early bird discount ($100; fee is $299 after discount) ends this week. After that, the full price of $399 will apply.

Here are the things you will learn in this course:

• Introduction to the Windows Communication Foundation
• The ABCs of WCF
• Developing WCF Service Library using Visual Studio 2008
• Developing a WCF Service and consuming a WCF Service
• Consuming a WCF Service asynchronously
• Deploying WCF Services
• Implementing Callbacks using WCF
• Implementing Transactions using WCF
• Securing WCF Services

In addition, you will:
* build a Cinema Ticketing application project using WCF that shows in real-time the number of seats booked and seats remaining!
* learn about the latest synchronization technology using Sync Services for ADO.NET and how you can synchronize your database over a WCF service.

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Learning Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) - 16th June 2008 (Mon)

By now, you must have heard of one of the latest buzzwords in the industry – WCF (Windows Communication Foundation).

According to Microsoft,

Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) is Microsoft’s latest technology for developing service-oriented applications. WCF simplifies development of connected applications through a new service-oriented programming model. WCF supports many styles of distributed application development by providing a layered architecture. At its base, the WCF channel architecture provides asynchronous, untyped message-passing primitives. Built on top of this base are protocol facilities for secure, reliable, transacted data exchange and broad choice of transport and encoding options.

You may also have attended numerous conference sessions on WCF. Most presentations focus on explaining the rationale and the motivation behind WCF. But what really is WCF from a developer’s point of view? How does a typical “hello, world” WCF application look like?

In this one-day workshop, you will learn the basics of building a WCF service and how to test it. At the end of the workshop, you would have a solid understanding of the capabilities of WCF and how you can use it to develop SOA (service-oriented architecture) applications!

DATE
Time: 9am to 5pm.
16th June 2008 (Mon)

COURSE FEE
S$399
Register before 31st May and receive S$100 discount (S$299 after discount).
Inclusive of 1 lunch and 2 tea breaks

Thursday, May 15, 2008

Free 1/2 Workshop on Windows Mobile 6 Programming

Have you ever wondered how you can program your Windows Mobile 6 device but do not know how to get started? Now, you can can jumpstarted in Windows Mobile 6 programming in half a day! And for FREE!

Here are the details:
* You need to bring along your own notebook for the course.
* You need to preinstall your own notebook with Visual Studio 2008 Professional (free 90-day trial edition is available for download from Microsoft's web site). Instructions on what to install will be emailed to selected participants.
* This workshop is intended for beginners to Windows Mobile development (if you are already developing Windows Mobile applications, then you are not the target audience for this course).
* At the end of the workshop, you will achieve the following:
- Learn how to get started in Windows Mobile programming
- Understand how to use the Windows Mobile emulators for testing
- Understand how to use the Cellular Emulator for testing phone and SMS messaging applications
- How to test your application using a real device
- How to deploy an application after development
- Basic understanding of the .NET Compact Framework 3.5
- Ready to embrace enterprise-ready applications

Venue
Motorola Enterprise Mobility Business
230 Victoria Street #12-06/10
Bugis Junction Office Tower
Singapore 188024

Date: 6 June 2008 (Fri)
Session #1: 9am to 12.30pm
Session #2: 1pm to 4.30pm

As spaces are limited, registrations are on first-come-first-serve basis (subject to maximum 2 seats per company). Please send an email to weimenglee@learn2develop.net, indicating the session you would like to attend.

Saturday, May 03, 2008

Book - Inside Steve's Brain

If you are a fan of Apple then you must also be a fan of Steve Jobs. If that is the case, I think you will enjoy this latest book by Leander Kahney - Inside Steve's Brain. Leander Kahney is also the author of The Cult of Mac and Cult of iPod.

In his latest book, Leander talked about what made Apple so special, with Steve Jobs at the helm. If you think that working under a fussy and demanding boss is a bad thing, think again. The bright side to this is that your work will be much more refined and of higher quality. And that's why Apple's products are so different from the rest of the competitors.

Overall, this book is an easy and interesting read and made me rethink about the quality of my work. If you are always curious about Steve Jobs and how he works, I strongly recommend this book. I have enjoyed it greatly and I am sure you will too. And one more thing, hug your fussy and perfectionist boss the next time you meet him at the office - he drives the best out of you.

Cruising the Interstate with Windows Mobile 6 Development

One benefit of choosing Microsoft technologies for your mobile apps is an integrated, streamlined development process. Find out how easy it is with this tutorial on the basics of developing Windows Mobile apps with the the .NET Compact Framework.

My new book - C# 2008 Programmer's Reference

I guess the cat is out of the bag...I am now working hard on my latest book - C# 2008 Programmer's Reference. This book covers all the important things you need to know to become a proficient C# programmer. It covers C# 3.0 using Visual Studio 2008. It will also include several chapters on developing Windows, Web, Silverlight, and Windows Mobile applications. Writing this book is actually much more involved than I had earlier expected, but I am enjoying every minute of it. When will be it be out? Well, sometime 3Q this year.

Pre-order it now. ;-)

Kindle-ready - Practical .NET 2.0 Networking Projects

I am excited to learn that my book - Practical .NET 2.0 Networking Projects, is now available on the Amazon.com's Kindle.

I have always wanted to be able to bring my books along with me when I travel, but I do not want to lug 10kg of paper with me. With Kindle, it is now possible to bring your favorite books with you without needing to worry about extra luggage. I think this is especially useful for technology books, which nowadays are huge - usually more than 1000 pages.

Right now, here are the various books that I want to put on my Kindle: Silverlight, ASP.NET 3.5, WCF, and iPhone. ;-)

If Kindle allows me to load my PDF documents onto it, I will give it a perfect score. Never mind if you say that it looks fugly...like Amazon said, when using the Kindle you are not suppose to know its presence.