Archive for category Cloud
Tech Ed Australia 2010 Day 1
I was recently invited to speak on a pre-day for faculty and students at TechEd Australia, held on the Gold Coast. The plan is to write up a little bit about each day, although it might not be up the same day, depending on internet availability.
So today was Academic Day, in particular, for faculty members, who had been invited to hear about what students want, directly from students. (That was the theme)
A couple of weeks previously, Andrew Parsons (@MrAndyPuppy), the local Academic Developer Evangelist asked me to do a presentation on Windows Phone 7, with a split between the experience promised by Microsoft, and developing for the phone. After I learned that I really cannot do a reasonable phone demo in 10 minutes, I cut it down to a demo of pre-made code.
Either way, some big highlights arose today. I managed to get Andy to let me see and use a developer phone, and I must say, awesome, however I cannot go into specifics, nor can I take photos unfortunately.
The other highlight was the awesome keynote presented by Michael Kordahi (@delic8genius) with a special appearance by August De Los Reyos (@augustdlr) presenting his experiences developing User experiences on the Surface, and even the Windows key on the keyboard. Some awesome demos for a theoretical Foxtel experience (Cable TV in Australia) that uses all devices, including a Surface table (jeez they love that thing). They then showed off the big devices for this year, Kinect and Windows Phone 7, and seeing this in person was really awesome. I cannot wait for next week when I will get to try out a device. (Unfortunately they took the device back to Sydney right after the keynote.)
Photos will follow as I can sort them out, and maybe videos depending on what I’m allowed to post, and what connection I can get.
Exciting days remain ahead, I have to present Windows Phone 7 to students on Thursday, and of course I must experience the great TechEd sessions.
SQL Azure – First Impressions
Posted by Michael in Cloud, Programming on September 27, 2009
Recently I decided to embark on a personal project I had on my mind for a while now. My intention has been to write a personal finance app that would manage things like invoices, timesheets, and expenses, and allow me to easily generate the reports and keep track of the information I need.
Previously I have been keeping track of this in a spreadsheet stored on Live Mesh, but recently I have had a need to store and present the data in a much more intuitive form, and allow for greater connections, ie Invoices can be easily marked as paid without having to manually add the value to my current balance when it happens.
Since I have a need to be able to access this information from any computer, in at least two physically separate locations, I need to keep the system in the cloud somewhere, with easy access with an internet connection, and as a bonus if possible, be able to edit whilst offline and sync when connection is restored.
Since my webserver is an apache host, I found that SQL Azure would be perfect for me, at least for now. (ie. Until the pricing comes into effect and I can decide if $9.95 per month is worth it for my needs.
It is quite easy to get going with SQL Azure, you just need an invite code (register and you should get one really quickly, I believe there is no more waiting list anymore) and a Windows Live ID. Once you enter your code, you are provisioned with a server which you can add databases to (up to 5 for the CTP) and use just like you would a MSSQL 2008 instance.
Now here is where I encountered some issues. Normally I would set the server up in the VS2008 server explorer and begin creating the database using the tools there, however unfortunately since SQL Data Services (SDS) does not support the entire set of features that MSSQL supports, this simply gives me an error, and further reading reveals I need to use the sqlcmd tool, write my own app, or with some configuration I can use the management tool that comes with MSSQL 2008. For reference, sqlcmd also only comes with MSSQL 2008, and so it just depends how comfortable you are with T-SQL, as sqlcmd will work out of the box with SDS, whilst the management tool will not.
Once you have your details (Get them from the connection string) you can login to your SDS database using sqlcmd and begin issuing SQL statements to your database. This is where I begin to setup my tables, (of course I pre-plan them) and then its just a matter of using the database as you normally would in your application, either the long manual way, using LINQ to SQL, using the ADO.Net Entity Framework, or any of the other ORM libraries/tools out there.
This is probably the easiest of the Azure services to get started with, and quite powerful for connected desktop applications.
I plan to write more about the app I am writing, since it is also a learning experience for me when it comes to the in depth aspects of WPF, and also database access using LINQ2SQL or the Entity Framework. (I am undecided over which to use)
If anyone knows of any better tools to manage the SDS databases, especially tools that don’t require me to install MSSQL2008, then please let me know in the comments.