All Things Microsoft AI

Stephen Toub from the Parallel Computing Platform team at Microsoft will be presenting at the Cleveland C#/VB.Net User Group on Thursday, October 29, 2009. Please note this meeting date is in addition to, not replacing, our regularly scheduled meeting every 4th Tuesday (October 27, 2009). He will be travelling through our district the last week of October. He will be speaking at corporations during the day, and user groups in the evening. Stephen's goal is to get direct feedback from developers on the products he works on. Your questions and feedback help make .NET better! Stephen will discuss concurrency and how .NET 4.0 simplifies parallel programming. This is one of the exciting things about .NET 4.0. With Moore’s Law breaking down, software developers need to be able to master multithreading and know how to develop concurrent applications. Historically, this has been very difficult. It’s hard to understand concurrency issues, hard to write good code, and hard to debug w...

Typemock is holding a free live webinar (web-seminar) on how to unit test successfully. The webinar will include the following: · Creating Supporting environment · Unit testing tools of the trade · Practices and Pitfalls · Writing the first test · Live Q & A You can get more details on - http://blog.typemock.com/2009/09/unit-testing-net-successfully-live-free.html

Microsoft released a chart highlighting the features of Windows 7, Vista SP1, and Windows Xp SP3. It lists features in 5 categories: File organization and Search Remote Access Security and Compliance Management Deployment To download the comparison chart, go to http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=FA0177CC-7E82-4993-B0D6-FEC84216DD9C&displaylang=en \

On Saturday, June 20, 2009, several local technology vendors and user groups will collaborate on hosting a summer picnic, called "TECHnic". The event is scheduled from 10AM-8PM at St. Sava's Picnic Grove in Parma, OH. For more information, please visit www.tinyurl.com/TECHnicPicnic .

CodeStock 2009 is a conference for software developers held in Knoxville, TN. The event is aimed at providing the latest and greatest topics in software development across various platforms. In addition, the event also has "open spaces" where fellow developers can gather and discuss any topic on their mind at the moment. This could range from advantages of C# vs. VB.Net to the pros/cons of Agile development to surviving a tough economic period. This year's event will be held June 26 - June 27, providing a variety of topics for 2 full days. The full list of sessions is available at http://codestock.org/Sessions.aspx with the exact scheduling due out soon. Tickets for the event are $25 if purchased before June 1st, and $45 afterwards. For members of the Cleveland C#/VB.Net User Group, 2 tickets have been provided free of charge to the first 2 people to respond to this blog. To claim your ticket, simply send an e-mail to sam@clevelanddotnet.info . If you're int...

Q: I always used databases provided by Microsoft to practice on. Today I tried to create my own and ran into trouble. Problem is that I cannot set the identity specification on a primary key. The column properties show up as no and I cannot change it to yes. I’m using SQL Server Express 2005 on a Vista machine. Any thoughts? A: . To change column properties, you must modify the table (right click table and select “Modify”). Select and highlight the column you want to change, then expand the “Identity Specification” in the “Column Properties” pane. Change the “Is Identity” property to “Yes”. Please note the change must be made to the “Is Identity” property, not the “Identity Specification”.

The Cleveland office of Sogeti USA will be hosting the following IT events in April. April 21: Taking the cost out if IT Time: 2:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m. Location: Microsoft Office 6050 Oak Tree Blvd. Independence, OH 44131 Agenda: > Introductions Microsoft and Sogeti > Taking the Cost out of IT > Break > Optimizing Microsoft Solution Delivery > Testimonials > Open Forum To register, go to http://www.clicktoattend.com/ then enter Event Code: 137141 April 30: "Me the Media - Rise of the Conversation Society" Date: Thursday, April 30, 2009 Time: 6:00 p.m. – 8:30 p.m. Location: Beacon Place (lower level conference room), 6055 Rockside Woods Blvd. Independence, OH 44131 The speaker at this event will be Erik van Ommeren,who is managing the US branch of the Sogeti InternationalResearch Institute for New Technology. He is an author andpublic speaker on topics such as innovation, collaboration,service oriented architecture, crowdsourcing and new media. You’re invited! ...

Listed below are .Net related events for April 2009: April 9: Ann Arbor Cloud Camp ( http://bit.ly/a2cc ) April 9: Ohio North SQL Server User Group - Executive Dashboards using SharePoint 2007 ( http://www.bennettadelson.com/seat.aspx?sig=sql&ID=141 ) April 14: .Net User Group - Silverlight 3.0 Beta ( http://www.bennettadelson.com/seat.aspx?sig=net&ID=145 ) April 28: Cleveland C#/VB.Net User Group - IronRuby ( http://www.clevelanddotnet.info/ ) April 30: ArcReady ( www.arcready.com ) April 30: MSDN Unleashed ( http://www.msdnevents.com/unleashed ) April 30: TechNet Unleashed ( http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032410537&Culture=en-US ) April 30: Cleveland Architecture SIG .

Q: How can I automate the FTP process so it runs on scheduler without user intervention? A: The FTP.EXE (File Transfer Protocol) command line utility comes standard with the Windows Operating system. Because it's a command line utility, it allows for many options to be entered at run time (simply enter FTP /? at the command prompt for a complete list). When using the -s: filename switch allows for the commands to be read from the filename specified. For example, first create a text file called myFTP.prm with the following commands: open www.myftpsite.com myUserID myPassword prompt off binary mput myfile *.txt From a command line, execute FTP -s: myFTP.prm . Please note there's no specific extension for file containing the FTP commands. For more info on this, please visit http://support.microsoft.com/kb/96269 Q: How can I execute a command line utility from with a VB Script? A: The CMD.EXE is a command line utility used for running other command...

The term "Tablix" can mean different things to different people. However, in the Microsoft realm it refers to the ability of SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) to combine a table and a matrix together.

Packt Publishing has recently released a new book titled " C# 2008 and 2005 Threaded Programming ". To help promote the new book, they have extended a 15% discount to members of the C#/VB.Net User Group. To take advantage of this offer, simply follow the 3 steps below: Visit http://www.packtpub.com/books and select any Packt title. Click the "ADD TO CART" button to add the book to your shopping cart. Now enter "CD15ug" (without quotes) in the 'Promotional Code' field and click the "Update" button. The discounted price should now be reflected in your order. Although Packt is based in the UK, they do offer free shipping to the US, with books arriving in only a few days. Packt Publishing has also sent a free copy to be given at an upcoming user group meeting. For more information, please visit http://www.packtpub.com/

Mar 10th: .Net User Group (Using TFS). To register, go to http://www.bennettadelson.com/seat.aspx?sig=net&ID=141 Mar 12th: ONSQL User Group. To register, go to http://www.bennettadelson.com/seat.aspx?sig=sql&ID=141 Mar 14th: GCPCUG General Meeting (Switching to a Mac & Windows on a Mac). To register, go to http://www.gcpcug.org/ Mar 24th: Cleveland C#/VB.Net User Group (Writing Secure Code). To register, go to http://www.clevelanddotnet.info/ Mar 25th: Cleveland SharePoint User Group (TBA). To register, go to http://www.sharepointcleveland.com/default.aspx Mar 28th: Cincinnati Silverlight Firestarter. To register, go to http://cinnug.org/default.aspx .

JC Armand is putting on a series of SQL Server 2008 educational webinars. These Live Meeting sessions cover a variety of topics on SQL Server 2008, from both a DBA and a developer's perspective. The sessions occur every Tuesday and Thursday, ending on Thursday, April 2, 2009. Each session is scheduled to start at 11AM EST and last for approximately 1 hour. 2/24/2009: Why SQL Server 2008 2/26/2009: How Windows Server 2008 benefits SQL Server 2008 3/3/2009: Upgrade/Migration strategy & Overcoming upgrade challenges 3/5/2009: SQL Server 2008 based Business Intelligence 3/10/2009: SQL Server 2008 for Developers 3/12/2009: What’s new in Reporting Services 2008 3/17/2009: SQL Server Consolidation Strategies 3/19/2009: Resource Governor 3/24/2009: Upgrade SQL Server clusters to Windows Server 2008 3/26/2009: Database compression & Back-up compression 3/31/2009: Database auditing & Transparent data encryption 4/2/2009: Optimizing SQL Server licensing for your business needs ...