Web Application Toolkits from Microsoft

                  Microsoft recently announced new web application tool kits for certain common tasks for developers to use them for their applications.These are find to be useful in many ways.Here is the Microsoft’s announcement on Web Application Toolkit.

These FREE Web App Toolkits help you complete common web development tasks and quickly add new features to your apps. Whether it’s Bing Maps integration or adding social capabilities to your site, there’s a toolkit for you. Download and install them today.

Web App Toolkit for "Freemium" Applications

A popular way to attract first time users is to offer a free version of a service that has limited functionality and once you’ve got them hooked provide an easy way to upgrade and pay for more features. This Web Application Toolkit offers a more elegant and cost-effective way to solve this problem by using a SKU/Features matrix to manage which features are available in certain SKUs. The Toolkit uses standard ASP.NET Role Management features together with WCF REST Services to retrieve the SKU/Features information.

• Download

Web App Toolkit for Calendars

Lots of Web sites store and display date information that is personal to their users. Users often want one place to manage their calendar, for example Outlook, Windows Live Calendar, Google Calendar and so on. This Web Application Toolkit provides a standards-based service that can be reused in your own Web application to expose calendaring and events information for different users, using different data formats (iCalendar, XML, JSON) using REST. Additionally, you’ll find examples of how to consume the endpoint using the ASP.NET Ajax Library with templates and the iCalendar microformat.

• Download

Web App Toolkit for Bing Maps

A common scenario for Web developers is to provide location based information rendered on an interactive map. For example, showing the location of an office or a store location. The Bing Maps SDKs including the Bing Maps Controls enables developers to incorporate both location and enhanced mapping features into their Web applications. In this Web Application Toolkit you will find a set of reusable custom controls built in Silverlight, which integrated with the Bing Maps Silverlight Control, make a perfect fit for some of the most common location-aware scenarios. With this Toolkit, you will also find a sample Silverlight application showing how to use those controls when implementing a “store locator” scenario on a Web site.

• Download

Web App Toolkit for IE8

Today users can access rich information and services while they are browsing a site; it's not a trivial task to expose this content to the same users when they are not on that site. The goal of this Web Application Toolkit is to leverage the new features in Internet Explorer 8 (Web Slices, Accelerators and Visual Search Providers) to extend the reach of your web site and services also to those users that are not on your site. The Web Application Toolkit includes a set of ASP.NET Web Controls that you can use to take advantage of these IE new features in your own Web application.

• Download
• Screencast

Web App Toolkit for Bing Search

Bing is a powerful new Decision Engine designed to help consumers accomplish tasks and make faster, more informed decisions. The Bing Application Programming Interface (API) provides developers programmatic access to Bing, offering flexible options for building or enhancing your site or applications. This Web Application Toolkit shows how to take advantage of the Bing API to add search capabilities to your Web site by leveraging the various search results that the Bing API provides, including Web content, images, news and videos, among others. Through this Web Application Toolkit you will also discover how to use ASP.NET AJAX and jQuery to provide an enhanced and more interactive end user experience when using the Bing API.

• Download
• Screencast

Web App Toolkit for REST Services

Many Web applications today are starting to expose data as REST service interfaces, so it can be accessed through APIs by other tiers of the application or even by other applications. A RESTful web service is a simple Web service implemented using HTTP and the principles of REST. REST Services focus on resources; each one is represented by a unique URI, and users interact with them via their URI using the HTTP uniform interface. This Web Application Toolkit shows how to easily add REST service interfaces for an existing Web application. The Web Application Toolkit includes a sample REST service, two sample client applications that access the REST services, one using simple ASP.NET Web Forms and a second Web application using AJAX to asynchronously invoke the REST service and finally a custom project template for Visual Studio to make it very easy to build new REST Services.

• Download
• Screencast

Web App Toolkit for Mobile Web Applications

This Web Application Toolkit is designed to demonstrate how to extend an existing ASP.NET MVC Web application to provide access from mobile devices. To enable mobile access, the Web application should have views targeting each of the mobile devices to be supported. The MVC pattern helps you create applications that separate the different aspects of the application (input logic, business logic, and UI logic), while providing a loose coupling between these elements. This Web Application Toolkit provides a component called MobileCapableViewEngine that enables the Web application to show the appropriate view depending on the device's browser that is performing the request. It also includes a sample site that provides different views for Windows Mobile, IPhone, and Blackberry devices.

• Download
• Screencast

Web App Toolkit for Template-Driven Email

This Web Application Toolkit is designed to demonstrate how to generate and send dynamic, template-based emails from a web application. There are many common scenarios where notification emails need to be sent to end users. Examples of these common scenarios may involve notifying a user of their newly created account, sending a new password in respond to a forgotten password request, or emailing an alert under specific business circumstances, such as the creation of a order. Typically the E-mails sent from a Web application scenario are formatted as HTML, include CSS stylesheets, and images and need to be generated dynamically with custom or user-specific data. This Web Application Toolkit includes samples that show how to use templates to generate these dynamic email bodies.

• Download
• Screencast

Web App Toolkit for Making Your Website Social

Adding social capabilities to your Web site allows you to attract new users, keep them on your Web site for longer and get them to come back more often. This Web Application Toolkit shows how, using a few lines of code with the Windows Live Messenger Web Toolkit, it is possible to add social capabilities to a Web site with instant messaging from a website to various client endpoints like Windows, Windows Mobile, Xbox 360 and Mac. Behind the scenes is a powerful set of UI Controls and a JavaScript library that connect your website to the Messenger Service which is used by 330 million users around the world.

• Download
• Screencast

Web App Toolkit for FAQs

Adding social capabilities to your Web site allows you to attract new users, keep them on your Web site for longer and get them to come back more often. This Web Application Toolkit shows how, using a few lines of code with the Windows Live Messenger Web Toolkit, it is possible to add social capabilities to a Web site with instant messaging from a website to various client endpoints like Windows, Windows Mobile, Xbox 360 and Mac. Behind the scenes is a powerful set of UI Controls and a JavaScript library that connect your website to the Messenger Service which is used by 330 million users around the world.

• Download
• Screencast

Windows Phone Announcement

Channel 9 has got a great hands on,head over to http://channel9.msdn.com/

Windows Phone 7 Series

                                          At Mobile World Congress 2010, Microsoft Corp. CEO Steve Ballmer unveiled the next generation of Windows^® Phones, Windows Phone 7 Series. With this new platform, Microsoft offers a fresh approach to phone software, distinguished by smart design and truly integrated experiences that bring to the surface the content people care about from the Web and applications. For the first time ever, Microsoft will bring together Xbox LIVE games and the Zune music and video experience on a mobile phone, exclusively on Windows Phone 7 Series. Partners have already started building phones; customers will be able to purchase the first phones in stores by holiday 2010.

“Today, I’m proud to introduce Windows Phone 7 Series, the next generation of Windows Phones,” said Steve Ballmer, chief executive officer at Microsoft. “In a crowded market filled with phones that look the same and do the same things, I challenged the team to deliver a different kind of mobile experience. Windows Phone 7 Series marks a turning point toward phones that truly reflect the speed of people’s lives and their need to connect to other people and all kinds of seamless experiences.”

Designed for Life in Motion

With Windows Phone 7 Series, Microsoft takes a fundamentally different approach to phone software. Smart design begins with a new, holistic design system that informs every aspect of the phone, from its visually appealing layout and motion to its function and hardware integration. On the Start screen, dynamically updated “live tiles” show users real-time content directly, breaking the mold of static icons that serve as an intermediate step on the way to an application. Create a tile of a friend, and the user gains a readable, up-to-date view of a friend’s latest pictures and posts, just by glancing at Start.

Every Windows Phone 7 Series phone will come with a dedicated hardware button for Bing, providing one-click access to search from anywhere on the phone, while a special implementation of Bing search provides intent-specific results, delivering the most relevant Web or local results, depending on the type of query.

Windows Phone 7 Series creates an unrivaled set of integrated experiences on a phone through Windows Phone hubs. Hubs bring together related content from the Web, applications and services into a single view to simplify common tasks. Windows Phone 7 Series includes six hubs built on specific themes reflecting activities that matter most to people:

People. This hub delivers an engaging social experience by bringing together relevant content based on the person, including his or her live feeds from social networks and photos. It also provides a central place from which to post updates to Facebook and Windows Live in one step.

Pictures. This hub makes it easy to share pictures and video to a social network in one step. Windows Phone 7 Series also brings together a user’s photos by integrating with the Web and PC, making the phone the ideal place to view a person’s entire picture and video collection.

Games. This hub delivers the first and only official Xbox LIVE experience on a phone, including Xbox LIVE games, Spotlight feed and the ability to see a gamer’s avatar, Achievements and gamer profile. With more than 23 million active members around the world, Xbox LIVE unlocks a world of friends, games and entertainment on Xbox 360, and now also on Windows Phone 7 Series.

Music + Video. This hub creates an incredible media experience that brings the best of Zune, including content from a user’s PC, online music services and even a built-in FM radio into one simple place that is all about music and video. Users can turn their media experience into a social one with Zune Social on a PC and share their media recommendations with like-minded music lovers. The playback experience is rich and easy to navigate, and immerses the listener in the content.

Marketplace. This hub allows the user to easily discover and load the phone with certified applications and games.

Office. This hub brings the familiar experience of the world’s leading productivity software to the Windows Phone. With access to Office, OneNote and SharePoint Workspace all in one place, users can easily read, edit and share documents. With the additional power of Outlook Mobile, users stay productive and up to date while on the go.

Availability

Partners from around the world have committed to include Windows Phone 7 Series in their portfolio plans. They include mobile operators AT&T, Deutsche Telekom AG, Orange, SFR, Sprint, Telecom Italia, Telefónica, Telstra, T-Mobile USA, Verizon Wireless and Vodafone, and manufacturers Dell, Garmin-Asus, HTC Corp., HP, LG, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Toshiba and Qualcomm Inc. The first phones will be available by holiday 2010. Customers who would like to receive additional information about Windows Phone 7 Series and be notified when it is available can register at http://www.windowsphone7series.com.

Moblin+Maemo=MeeGo

As MWC has started there are lots of news to cover up.So i’m just including the press releases of all them.Will do detailed review later.

“Espoo, Finland and Santa Clara, CA, USA -

 

In a significant development in the convergence of communications and computing, Intel Corporation and Nokia are merging their popular Moblin and Maemo software platforms. This will create a unified Linux-based platform that will run on multiple hardware platforms across a wide range of computing devices, including pocketable mobile computers, netbooks, tablets, mediaphones, connected TVs and in-vehicle infotainment systems. Called MeeGo, the open software platform will accelerate industry innovation and time-to-market for a wealth of new Internet-based applications and services and exciting user experiences. MeeGo-based devices from Nokia and other manufacturers are expected to be launched later this year.

This announcement strengthens the Nokia and Intel relationship, and builds on the companies' broad strategic collaboration announced in June 2009. Intel and Nokia now invite participation in MeeGo from existing Maemo and Moblin global communities and across the communications and computing industries.

"Our vision for seamlessly communicating between computing devices from the home, auto, office or your pocket is taking a big step forward today with the introduction of MeeGo," said Intel President and CEO Paul Otellini. "This is a foundational step in our evolving relationship with Nokia. The merging of these two important assets into an open source platform is critical toward providing a terrific experience across a variety of devices and gaining cross- industry support."

"MeeGo will drive an even wider range of Internet computing and communication experiences for consumers, on new types of mobile devices," said Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, CEO, Nokia. "Through open innovation, MeeGo will create an ecosystem that is second to none, drawing in players from different industries. It will support a range of business models across the value chain, building on the experience and expertise of Nokia, Intel and all those who will join us. Simply put, MeeGo heralds a new era of mobile computing."

MeeGo blends the best of Maemo with the best of Moblin to create an open platform for multiple processor architectures. MeeGo builds on the capabilities of the Moblin core OS and its support for a wide range of device types and reference user experiences, combined with the momentum of Maemo in the mobile industry and the broadly adopted Qt application and UI framework for software developers.

MeeGo also unites the robust worldwide Maemo and Moblin applications ecosystems and open source communities. For developers, MeeGo extends the range of target device segments for their applications. Using Qt for application development means that they can write applications once and easily deploy them on MeeGo and across other platforms, for example, on Symbian. 

The Ovi Store will be the channel to market for apps and content for all Nokia devices, including MeeGo and Symbian-based, with Forum Nokia providing developer support across all Nokia device platforms. The Intel AppUpSM Center will be the path to market for Intel-based MeeGo devices from other device manufacturers, with the Intel® Atom(TM) Developer Program providing support for applications targeting devices in a variety of categories.

The MeeGo software platform, running on high-performance devices, will deliver a range of Internet, computing and communication experiences, with visually rich graphics, multitasking and multimedia capabilities and the best application performance. Since MeeGo runs on multiple device types, people can keep their favorite applications when they change devices, so they are not locked into one kind of device or those from any individual manufacturer.

MeeGo Hosted by the Linux Foundation

The MeeGo software platform will be hosted by the Linux Foundation as a fully open source project, encouraging community participation in line with the best practices of the open source development model. Intel and Nokia invite the respective members of Maemo.org and Moblin.org to join the combined community at MeeGo.com, as well as encouraging wider participation from the communications, computing and related industries. Developers can begin writing applications for MeeGo in Qt immediately. The first release of MeeGo is targeted for the second quarter of this year. “

Stay tuned for more interesting news..

Symbian Foundation Announces Symbian S^3

 

What is Symbian^3?

Symbian^3 is the first fully open source version of the Symbian platform, and the second release of the Symbian platform by the Symbian Foundation. It extends Symbian^2 in many ways, including graphics support for advanced layering and effects, full HDMI support for a great television playback experience and improved data performance - ideal for streaming high definition audio and video. View the full press release or their blog for more information.

There's a lot to benefit both users and developers in Symbian^3!

The most important improvements to the user experience:

• Networking An improved networking architecture, ideal for streaming high definition audio and video
• Multimedia Full HDMI support with HDCP to provide a great high definition video experience when plugging your mobile device into a television
• Graphics Re-architected to harness the full power of graphics hardware acceleration and provide support for advanced layering and effects
• Usability Improved single tap support to make the UI more fluid and easy to use

Symbian^3 for Developers

• Qt 4.6 Application Framework Availability of the Qt 4.6 application framework for Symbian^3 is a key step in the evolution of Symbian's application development environment - it will become the primary application framework in Symbian^4. Availability in Symbian^3 allows developers to start unleashing the power of this new runtime, to plan new applications and to start the migration of their existing applications.
• Smart Installer for dependency management We have added “smart installer” technology in S^3 which makes it possible to fetch and install the correct version of Qt automatically when a user attempts to download a Qt-based application.

Learn more about Symbian^3 for Developers!

Can I get my hands on S^3 now?

Absolutely - with the recent open sourcing of the entire S^3 platform anyone can get their hands on it - just go to the ’Source’ page on the Symbian's Developers website.

 

                                                   

Bing Maps-Spatial Search

                                                          

Bing Maps team recently demoed their latest creation which blends other Microsoft technologies with Bing maps.What it basically does is pull geo-tagged photos from flickr,construct 3D version of locations using Photosynth and integrate it into Bing maps.Another Cool integration is Worldwide telescope is also integrated into maps.When you are roaming in streets,when you look up you can enjoy the nature’s original beauty.Sound Cool???Check out yourself.Here is the Bing Blog details on it..

“For Exploring, we’ve made a number of updates to the Bing Maps platform to bring this idea to life through high resolution imagery from outer space all the way down to the front door of the bakery. Today at TED, we’re announcing a next step in this evolution of making this imagery more useful and interactive with the release of the technology preview of the Streetside Photos application. This tech preview mines geo-tagged photos from Flickr, and relates them to our Streetside imagery to show images matched to its original spatial context. Why is this cool? You’re now able to see what that club looks like at night (is it really THAT scary?), see if you’re really going to get a good sunset at that B&B you’re looking to book, or check out the crowds on a Saturday morning at Pike Place Market in Seattle or get a view of the same market from decades prior. As more people share imagery, our challenge is to reunite those photos with where they were taken – again, provide context to the data in the ether. Watch Blaise’s demo to see Streetside Photos in action.

But we’re not just stopping at the street. Today, we’re also excited to demonstrate integration with the WorldWide Telescope, a project out of Microsoft Research. Once launched, you will be able to walk outside in Streetside mode, look up, and see what’s above – way above – right now where you’re standing. Constellations come to life as you pan – you can even set the time of day so you can see what you’ll see at 9pm – great for exploring with your daughter to get her ready for what she’ll see when the sun goes down.

At the same time as we’re getting more “universal” with World Wide Telescope, we’re also getting more intimate. At TED, Blaise showed the first results of our indoor panoramas work. This will provide an experience identical to Streetside, but won’t be limited to places you can take a vehicle. Whether you’re exploring Seattle’s Pike Place Market, or your favorite theme park, Bing Maps will give you the most immersive experience of the place.  We’ve already given you a taste of this with the integration of Photosynths into Bing Maps (18,000 of them and counting), and you can expect Photosynth and Streetside to converge in a way that allows all of us to document the important places in the world – indoor or outdoor – and explore  them in a completely natural way.

When it comes to Discovering, we launched our “Map Apps” gallery to bring that disconnected data home. From our Local Lens to Twitter, we’re bringing data back to where it can help you discover what’s in a physical area. And sometimes, there’s no substitute for absolute real-time. At TED we also demonstrated live Webcam feeds perfectly which enables real-time video to be overlaid seamlessly on street-level imagery, adding another dimension to the mapping experience. Imagine – you can see how long the line is at Five Guys before you head over for a burger. In the coming year, we think you will be pleasantly surprised with how far Bing takes this new technology. Stay tuned.   “

Kudos to Bing team for their ultra cool work..

Google Buzz

   Last week,Google had a press conference to show their latest attempt to catch up in Social networking space.The product is called Google Buzz.yes,even yahoo has a product named Buzz.Google Buzz according to Google

“Go beyond status messages

Share updates, photos, videos, and more.
Start conversations about the things you find interesting.”

What it actually can or meant to?

I tried Google Buzz last week.Thats the mistake i’ve ever done with Google products.It let my gmail contacts exposed.Google privacy team s***s.Later they fixed it.They exposed how many people i’m following and how many follow me.Later they fixed that too.Lots of privacy and half baked items.I didnt know why Google releasing such a pre-matured product to people without their permission.yes its integrated into Gmail,So you should probably use them.

Final Word: Dont even try for now..

Didn’t like New Facebook?? Try this

                           As part of celebration of its 6th Birthday,Facebook has undergone some user element changes in it.But the problem is most of the users didn't like its redesign.So here is my idea to get rid of this problem temporarily until facebook does anything.

Silverlight 4:

Install silverlight 4 client in your computer.Here is the download link

http://silverlight.dlservice.microsoft.com/download/F/6/5/F653F7FD-AD4D-411D-8B1F-9C4B1BD69881/Silverlight_Developer.exe

Silverlight Client for facebook:

Install this client from this link

http://www.silverlight.net/content/samples/apps/facebookclient/sfcquickinstall.aspx

Find the Silverlight Client for Facebook in Start menu,Click it.

It will ask for your facebook username and password,Authorize it.

Enjoy the super cool facebook client like the below.

Microsoft Windows Mobile 7 Leaked info

                          Mobile World Congress,Barcelona starts on February-15th.As Microsoft has great announcements this year about its Windows Mobile 7,many rumours has started spreading.Guys at PPCGEEKS have got some interesting info on it.Lets take a look at it.

-At the Mobile World Congress event on February 15th, 2010, Windows Phone 7 will be unveilved, although at this time plans are only to unveil the user interface of the new platform . Specific indepth functionality of the device will most likely not be shown.-The User Interface is based upon codename “METRO”. It will be very similar to the Zune HD User Interface with a complete revamp of the “Start” screen. The UI is “Very Clean”, “Soulful” and “Alive”
-Unfortunately there will be no Flash support at the get go as there was not enough time to implement these features.
-Windows Phone 7 will only support application installation through service based delivery. (i.e Marketplace). Application installation via storage card will not be possible.
- No Multi-Task support. Applications will “Pause” when in the background, however will support notifications via push notifications.
-Marketplace will now support “try before you buy” as well as an API
-No NETCF backwards compatibility. This means the original rumor of no backward compatibility for applications holds to be true. That being said, there are high hopes of porting the NetCF to the newer platform easily.
-Microsoft is confident that devices will be ready by September 2010
-Full Zune Integration
-Windows Mobile Device Center will no longer be used. Zune software to take over syncing via PC.
-OEM Interfaces will not be allowed to run on the device. Say goodbye to Sense UI / SPB Mobile Shell / Point UI / Infinity, etc, etc
-Full XBOX Gaming Integration (Gamer tag, achievements, friends, avatars, merchandising, etc)
-Full support for social networking

Hope Multitasking will be included in MS’s plans..