• Zero to Awesome in Nothing Flat: The Microsoft Web Platform and You
• Windows Workflow Foundation 4 from the Inside Out
• Windows Identity Foundation Overview
• Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 Kernel Changes
• Using Classification for Data Security and Data Management
• Under the Hood with Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Programmability
• The State of Parallel Programming
• The DirectX 11 Compute Shader
• Simplifying Application Packaging and Deployment with Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2
• Petabytes for Peanuts! Making Sense Out of “Ambient” Data.
• Microsoft Visual C++ 2010: The "Accelerated" Way of Building Applications
• Microsoft Unified Communications: Developer Platform Futures
• Microsoft Silverlight Roadmap and Futures
• Microsoft Silverlight 3 Advanced Performance and Profiling Techniques
• Manycore and the Microsoft .NET Framework 4: A Match Made in Microsoft Visual Studio 2010
• Development Best Practices and Patterns for Using Microsoft SQL Azure Databases
• Developing xRM Solutions Using Windows Azure
• Developing .NET Managed Applications Using the Office 2010 Developer Platform
• Developer Patterns to Integrate Microsoft Silverlight 3.0 with Microsoft SharePoint 2010
• Data Programming and Modeling for the Microsoft .NET Developer
• Building Applications for the Windows Azure Platform
• Automating “Done Done” in the Dev-to-Test Workflow with Microsoft Visual Studio Team System 2010
• Accelerating Applications Using Windows HPC Server 2008

• Getting the most out of Silverlight 3
• Patterns of Parallel Programming
• Developing Quality Software using Visual Studio Team System 2010
• Architecting and Developing for Windows Azure
• Microsoft Technology Roadmap
• Software in the Energy Economy
• Developing Microsoft BI Applications - The How and The Why

Code Pack, or Windows® API Code Pack for Microsoft® .NET Framework to use the official name, has hit 1.0 with the RTM of Windows 7 and is now available for your downloading and coding delight. Yes, two registered trademarks in the name, but still technically not a product. It's the most useful not-a-product I know. The mission statement, if you will, of Code Pack is:

The Windows® API Code Pack for Microsoft® .NET Framework provides a source code library that can be used to access some new Windows 7 features (and some existing features of older versions of Windows operating system) from managed code. These Windows features are not available to developers today in the .NET Framework.

The parenthetical in that description is referring to Vista features like Restart and Recovery and Network Awareness, among others. If you've been playing along throughout the beta period of Windows 7 you probably have three questions:

What's in 1.0 that wasn't in 0.9?

• Shell Search API support.
• Drag and Drop functionality for Shell objects.
• Support for Direct3D and Direct2D interoperability.
• Support for Typography and Font enumeration DirectWrite APIs.

• You should get 1.0 because it has some bugfixes in it.

• Probably, but no guarantees.

• The Code Pack also contains sample applications built using this library. Each sample has a C# version and a VB.NET version and has its own solution file.

query.Query = "<Where><Eq><FieldRef Name='" & list.Fields.Item("Created By").InternalName & _

                "'/><Value Type='User'>" & SPContext.Current.Web.CurrentUser.Name & "</Value></Eq></Where>" & _

            "<OrderBy><FieldRef Name='Created' Ascending='FALSE' /></OrderBy>"

items = list.GetItems(query)

You might try to increase performance and memory usage by caching SPListItemCollection objects that are returned from queries. In general, this is a good practice; however, the SPListItemCollection object contains an embedded SPWeb object that is not thread safe and should not be cached.

' use a random value in query so we don't get cached.
randomValue = generator.Next(100, 1000000000)
query.Query = "<Where><And><Eq><FieldRef Name='" & list.Fields.Item("Created By").InternalName & _
                "'/><Value Type='User'>" & SPContext.Current.Web.CurrentUser.Name & "</Value></Eq><Neq>" & _
                "<FieldRef Name='Title' /><Value Type='Text'>" & randomValue.ToString & "</Value>" & _
                "</Neq></And></Where>" & _
            "<OrderBy><FieldRef Name='Created' Ascending='FALSE' /></OrderBy>"
items = list.GetItems(query)

Day 1, Session 1:
Tips and Tricks for Visual Studio
This session enhances your experience with Visual Studio. Keyboard shortcuts, macros, layouts, fonts, tools, and external utilities are all very powerful and underused features of Visual Studio. This session makes you more productive in Visual Studio. Bring your pen and pad because you'll definitely want to take notes!

Day 2, Session 4:
Database Change Management with Team System
If you develop database enabled applications on top of SQL Server, you owe it to yourself to considering doing it better with Visual Studio Team System. In this session, you’ll learn about changes to how the product works under the covers and what that means to you. Then, you’ll learn how to use the product to design, build, and deploy your databases to development, test, and production environments -- all with purpose and method instead of the more traditional madness that can be found in many shops in the wild.

I am a huge Data Dude fan, which makes the second session a natural, and as for the first one, I'm one of those people. When I present I'm nice and careful with lots of mouse clicking so everyone can see what I'm doing. But when I'm sitting down to code, I get a pretty constant chorus of "hey, how did you do that so fast?". Come and see how .

Kate

• Enable C++ project system logging
• VC++ Directories
• Inherited Properties and Property Sheets
• Insights into the VC++ Project System (Channel 9 Video)

Kate