We just released Visual Studio LightSwitch Beta 1 to MSDN subscribers. Public availability will be this Monday, August 23rd but if you are an MSDN subscriber visit your subscriptions page to get access to the download now. Otherwise check the the LightSwitch Developer Center on Monday for the public download.

Here are some resources to help get you started — we have a lot more for you on Monday via the Dev Center so stay tuned!!

• LightSwitch Beta 1 Documentation on MSDN?
• Vision Clinic Application Walkthrough and Sample
• LightSwitch Forum
• LightSwitch on Channel 9

We’re looking forward to your feedback, please visit the forums.

Enjoy,
-Beth Massi, Visual Studio Community

Here is the original post: Microsoft Sync Framework

Sneak peeks can help you plan

Everyone, myself included, likes to have an idea of what’s coming in order to plan ahead more effectively. For example, if you knew that Apple was about to release a redesign to the iPhone in the next month, you might hold off on buying one until it’s been released. Software professionals are no different – if you know what’s coming in the key software components that your application stack uses, you can plan your project development and release schedules to make sure you can take advantage of a critical new feature.

Fall is typically a time when we see a lot of our customers in the midst of major project development and release cycles since this follows the busy summer vacation season for those of us in the northern hemisphere. To make it easier for organizations to plan for the Fall, Progress DataDirect is offering a “sneak peek” of what is coming in our Fall releases.

Whether you’re planning a new software product launch, rolling out a new organization-wide business intelligence stack, or simply curious about how the upcoming releases of our products can increase the performance of your critical applications, register now for this webinar to get an exclusive preview of the upcoming releases of the world’s best ODBC, JDBC and ADO.NET drivers and providers from Progress DataDirect.

Title: A Sneak Peek At Progress DataDirect

Date: Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Time: 11:00 a.m. New York / 10:00 a.m. Chicago / 8:00 a.m. San Francisco

WebEx registration URL: https://progress.webex.com/progress/onstage/g.php?t=a&d=713588897

Source: ODBC Matters

What can be more valuable to busy IT professionals than providing “proven” integrated hardware and software solutions? Building on a strong, pre-tested and pre-validated IT foundation will ensure fewer configuration mis-steps and project delays.

Dell and Oracle have set the bar for interoperability with their new Tested and Validated Program announced this week. Program deliverables include: 1) Solution Deliverable List with it’s detailed validated components, 2) Deployment Guides with its configuration best practices, 3) Toolkits (drivers and scripts) and 4) Advisor Tools for hardware sizing assistance. Jeff S. from Dell brings the program into focus in his recent blog.

This ongoing testing and validation is no walk in the park. Dell solution engineers are continuously testing with new releases of firmware, O/S, drivers, etc. Kudos to Dell for making this huge investment to simplify integration and providing the guidelines to build a rock solid IT foundation. It’s just another example of their commitment to quality.

The original post is created by: Inside IT Storage @ Seagate

Today’s announcement between Seagate and Samsung to jointly develop controller technology for future enterprise Solid State Drives is certainly a milestone. And it makes business sense too that the the leading flash and HDD makers join together to develop new SSD controller technologies that will push beyond what exists today.

Each company brings something unique to the table besides its market leadership. While companies in any technology field when marketing will tend to focus on the positive aspects of the technology they are producing or selling, we know that behind the scenes all technologies have challenges and hurdles that must be overcome. In the case of storage, it doesn’t matter whether we’re discussing SSDs or HDDs; engineers working with both technologies are most often tasked with limiting the number of data errors produced at the media. Think of it as the game of always looking to make perfect something that will always be imperfect to start with.  Seagate has great expertise in minimizing errors on its media and its current enterprise HDDs are best-in-class in the area of error recovery.

So that is at the heart of the collaboration from a technical perspective: error recovery and management. Samsung brings its flash technology expertise while Seagate brings its error recovery expertise to the table. Between them, the companies will look to produce a controller for SSDs that can attain the high levels of performance, reliability, and endurance demanded by enterprise storage applications.

Another interesting technical piece is the fact that today’s announcement references the use of  Samsung’s 30 nanometer-class MLC (Multi-Level Cell) NAND as the technology base for the collaborative project. MLC NAND enables higher capacities at a lower cost, but it has not typically been a target technology for enterprise use due to having lower endurance. However, the controller technology that Seagate and Samsung develop together with its advanced error recovery and flash management, will enable more cost-effective and long-life products for the enterprise space.

It’s an exciting time in the world of storage. As future announcements are made about the collaboration and results, we’ll look to add further perspective to the story.

Author: Inside IT Storage @ Seagate

Hot news flash:? You can now try? Windows Azure and SQL Azure for a month – FREE!?

Now you can do this with the Windows Azure One Month Pass USA.? Through this unique offer, US developers can get a one month pass to try out Windows Azure and SQL Azure – without having to submit a credit card!

Limited to US developers, the first 500 to sign up each month will get a full month’s pass good for the one calendar month.? In addition, you’ll get free phone, chat and email support through the Front Runner for Windows Azure program.

See this blog post for more details and links to take advantage of this great program.

Bill Zack

The original is here: Microsoft Sync Framework

Although Seagate’s core business is hard drive manufacturing, there are numerous business development teams within the company that work with outside OEMs and customers to explore technologies and implementations for the future. One significant area Seagate has continued to look at during the past several years has been the emergence of cloud computing.

Wes Perdue is part of Seagate’s Enterprise Product Line Management team directly responsible for its Cloud Storage Strategy. Recently, Perdue wrote an extensive story on the topic that was posted at CTOEdge.

The story, “Cloud Computing: A New Model for Delivering and Consuming IT Resources” is an excellent primer that first describes what cloud computing is and how clouds form. It then focuses on choosing the appropriate storage type for the right application. Perdue wraps up his story with a discussion of the timeframe for expected widespread cloud adoption in the future.

Seagate undoubtedly sees growth in the clouds. With this emerging environment, Perdue along with Seagate’s Cloud Storage Strategy team, will continue to stay on top of the technology so that businesses will ultimately be able to get the most from using cloud-based storage applications.

Go here to see the original: Inside IT Storage @ Seagate

This is the portal page for the Support Debugging Tool for Microsoft Dynamics GP.

For v9.0, v10.0 & GP 2010 (v11.0): Current?release is Build 13 (Last Modified: 11-May-2010).
For v8.0: Current?release is Build 12 (Last Modified: 09-Mar-2010).

Note: Build 13 is compatible with the GP 2010 RTM?release, fixing the?version check issue.?

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Overview

The Support Debugging Tool is a Dexterity built application which contains a collection of utilities and tools to make the task of supporting, developing and debugging Microsoft Dynamics GP easier and faster.

The tool currently contains two modes of operation; Standard Mode and Advanced Mode. Advanced Mode features require system administrator or database owner (dbo) privileges and require expertise in Dexterity and/or SQL Server administration.

Standard Mode includes the following features; Manual Logging Mode, Individual Logging Mode, Dex.ini Settings, Resource Information, Security Profiler, Security Information, Configuration Export/Import , ScreenShot and Send Email.

Advanced Mode features include; Automatic Debugger Mode, Dictionary Control, XML Table Export, XML Table Import, Runtime Execute, SQL Execute, Configuration Maintenance, Administrator Settings and Dex.ini Configuration.??

PowerPoint presentation on the Support Debugging Tool is attached to the bottom of this page.?

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Release Announcements?

Below are the links for the various release announcement blog posts, please review these posts to see the features added and fixes made for each build:

30-Jul-2008: Support Debugging Tool for Microsoft Dynamics GP?

03-Sep-2008: Support Debugging Tool – The wait is over??

18-Dec-2008: Support Debugging Tool Build 10 released?

05-Jun-2009: Support Debugging Tool Build 11 released?

17-Feb-2010: Support Debugging Tool Build 12 released?

01-Mar-2010: Support Debugging Tool for Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 Beta

10-Mar-2010: Update to Support Debugging Tool For Build 12

13-May-2010: Support Debugging Tool Build 13 released

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Frequently Asked Questions

This blog post is an extensive FAQ list for the Support Debugging Tool:

Installing the Support Debugging Tool for Microsoft Dynamics GP FAQ

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Convergence Atlanta 2010 Materials

Below is the link to download the session materials, which including step by step installation instructions:

CSGP29 – Tools for Administering Microsoft Dynamics GP like the Pros?(7.12MB)

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Downloads

Below are the PartnerSource links for downloading the Support Debugging Tool:

Support Debugging Tool for Microsoft?Great Plains?8.0

Support Debugging Tool for Microsoft Dynamics GP 9.0

Support Debugging Tool for Microsoft Dynamics GP 10.0

Support Debugging Tool for Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 (v11.0)

NOTE:?The tool?is posted on PartnerSource ?and so can be downloaded by partners.? If you are a customer, you will need to obtain the tool through your partner. Any feedback or questions about the tool will be handled via the Microsoft Dynamics GP Community Forum.

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Support Information?

The Support Debugging Tool is a custom built tool to provide additional capabilities to troubleshoot issues and is not part of the standard Microsoft Dynamics GP released application. Technical support for this tool is not handled via the standard support systems and instead is provided via the public Microsoft Dynamics GP Community Forum. You can use the link below to access the forum:

http://community.dynamics.com/forums/32.aspx

To assist the partners and Microsoft employees who monitor the forum for these questions, please prefix any subject lines with the initials “SDT: “.

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Other Articles and Posts

For other related articles and posts have a look at the Support Debugging Tool Tag page.

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Comments and Feedback

Please provide comments, feedback and suggestions for the Support Debugging Tool to help us understand how you use the tool and how we can improve it.

?

04-May-2010: Added Convergence Atlanta 2010 Materials download link.

13-May-2010: Updated for Support Debugging Tool build 13 release.

Original post: Microsoft Sync Framework

The hype curve for Solid State Drives (SSD) has been very strong over the past several years. The promises and benefits of SSDs made by some vendors seemed to suggest that traditional hard drives (HDD) would soon become antiquated relics. It didn’t help of course that these messages were perpetuated by some of the newer and less-experienced SSD vendors out there (and just to be clear, this isn’t to say that there aren’t many strong SSD makers). Examining the vendor count though, it’s fair to say that are a larger number of SSD vendors in the marketplace when compared with the smaller, but established core number of HDD makers.

And it is not that Seagate is “anti-SSD”.  In fact, it is quite the opposite. Seagate’s view is that SSDs will be complementary to HDDs and expand the overall storage market. Bottom line is it’s a good business for all of us. There are applications where SSDs fill an ideal role, while HDDs have advantages that are tough for SSDs to match in other environments. The cost/capacity comparisons are the obvious areas, but there is more behind this.

Henry Newman wrote a great story on the Enterprise Storage Forum site titled, “Why Solid State Drives Won’t Replace Spinning Disk.” I appreciate Newman’s piece because he presents a balanced view with regard to the challenges that SSD technology itself has, and he takes the discussion beyond the surface-level hype. Let’s face it, any technology, especially one that is relatively new, will have technical challenges that engineers will need to face and hopefully be able to solve. And whether it’s an SSD or an HDD, good engineering and design will always be required if the technology is expected to progress!

Here is the original post: Inside IT Storage @ Seagate

?	?

Dentro del proyecto de Vinculación entre el CONALEP y Microsoft, sus estudiantes, docentes y planteles, dispondrán de los siguientes beneficios:

?

1. Software Microsoft para Robótica, Multimedios, Videojuegos, Diseño Grafico, Desarrollo Web, Animación, Programación, Bases de datos y Servidores

Programa: DreamSpark

Beneficiarios: Estudiantes y Docentes de todos los planteles de CONALEP

Costo: no tiene costo

Forma de acceso:

• Ir al portal de DreamSpark
• Dar click en INCIAR SESION
• Introduce tu cuenta de Windows Live (la asignada por CONALEP)
• Comienza a disfrutar los beneficios de DreamSpark!

?

2. Software técnico Microsoft y contenidos educativos para los docentes de CONALEP

Programa: Faculty Connection

Beneficiarios: Docentes de todos los planteles de CONALEP

Costo: no tiene costo

Forma de acceso:

• Solo tienes que solicitar un código de acceso al responsable de informática de tu plantel.

?

3. Software técnico Microsoft para los laboratorios de enseñanza-aprendizaje de los planteles de CONALEP.

Programa: MSDN AA

Beneficiarios: Laboratorios de Enseñanza – Aprendizaje

Costo: no tiene costo

Forma de acceso: Solo tienes que solicitar los accesos al software a los responsables de informática de tu plantel.

?

4. Software Microsoft para los emprendedores de desarrollo de software de CONALEP durante 3 años sin costo para diseñar, programar, producir, probar, demostrar y hospedar sus productos de software y soluciones

Programa: BizSpark

• Inscríbete en http://www.microsoft.com/bizspark

Beneficiarios: Estudiantes, incubandos, egresados de CONALEP que emprendan y desarrollen software.

Costo: no tiene costo

Requisitos:

1. Tener una cuenta de Windows Live (la asignada por CONALEP).

2. Si tu empresa ya esta creada, deberá tener menos de 3 años en el mercado. No es necesario que tu empresa este formalmente creada.

3. Tener un capital 100% privado.

4. Si ya facturas, deberás tener en la actualidad una facturación anualizada inferior a los 250,000? dólares.

5. Desarrollar software empaquetado para comercializar o software más servicios, como parte fundamental de tu negocio.

6. Contar con:

· Una página Web (con dominio propio, URL) que describa sus productos que ofreces u ofrecerás.

· Una dirección de correo electrónico del dominio de su empresa con la cual se establecerá la comunicación con el programa, vía correo electrónico.

Forma de acceso:

Para recibir mayor información sobre el Programa de Vinculación Microsoft- CONALEP, por favor envía un correo electrónico a: cat@conalep.edu.mx

?

CATÁLOGO DE VIDEOS

Tenemos para ti los siguientes videos en los cuales podrás encontrar conejos y tips de los programas que tienes a tu disposición.

1. Programa de Emprendedores

2. Live@Edu

3. TechNet

4. Profesionales TI

5. Seguridad en Internet

6. Autodesk. Descarga software gratis.

The original is here: Microsoft Sync Framework

Thanks to Commander Farrell for sharing this one with me – by Paul Adams of Google. Reminded me of Danah’s work and lessons for us all in here. Social networks look easy because they are made to be easy. They’re just as hard as real networks though and need the same love, care and attention.

Original post here: Microsoft Sync Framework