Just a quick followup to my latest post, Microsoft just announced the availability of new HOLS that includes a dedicated lab for the SharePoint support in Visual Studio 2012 Update 1 which includes a practical step-by-step exercises over the following features:

1- Unit testing SharePoint development artifacts using SharePoint Emulator assemblies. Microsoft SharePoint Emulators basically intercept the calls to Microsoft.SharePoint dlls which reduce the testing/maintenace time of SharePoint development.

2- Intellitrace support for SharePoint Improvement.

3- Web and Load testing SharePoint applications.

You can download the lab directly from here.

If you happen to be a developer or working in the development field, you probably know the pain of keeping the development environment up to date, and the headache caused by patches which sometimes requires another update rollup, but the real pain arise when wanting to prepare a fresh Development environment machine, and facing the necessity to download  and install a lot of updates.

Like other vendors, Microsoft has it’s own mechanism of releasing updates for their software’s and products, for example: in SharePoint and Office world, usually they release a cumulative updates (CU) every two months which is a downloadable package contains the hot-fixes for either a certain product or family of products, and on annual basis, they release service packs; which usually contains the whole set of previous hot-fixes in addition to some core engineering enhancements, rarely they provide additional features, such as the latest SharePoint Service Pack which introduced some additional features to the product.

As for the new Visual Studio update mechanism, VS team is committed to continuously provide the product with additional capabilities and added-values, in addition to the hot-fixes and security updates.

SharePoint Developer Capabilities:

The most exciting capabilities for me within this update pack for Visual Studio 2012 is the new SharePoint capabilities (As you may know my major specialization is SharePoint Technology), which includes the following:

1- Supporting the testing and QA aspects in the SP development in the application lifecycle by allowing the SP developers to do unit tests, coded UI tests, and incorporating Microsoft Fakes Framework to simulate the SharePoint complicated DLL dependencies, which means testing SP development artifacts is not a headache anymore

2- Load/Stress testing is fully supported, these kind of testing’s usually require different set of tools in order to get an accurate results.

3- Intellitrace logging support for SharePoint, Intellitrace is a very interesting debugging feature, it requires a dedicated blog post to explain the benefits of it, you can read more here if you are interested to know more about it.

I will be blogging more in the next days about these features and how to utilize them in SharePoint development.

Visual Studio 2012 Update 1 Offline Installer:

One more thing to add here; is the offline availability of the VS2012 Update 1, by default VS2012 U1 is delivered through web installer which requires a decent internet connection, in order to download it offline and distribute it internally within the development team, you can do the following steps:

1- Download the Web Installer from here.

2- Use the command prompt to launch the web installer with a parameter which indicates that you want to download the update 1 package to a certain folder instead of installing it to the windows programs temporary folder as the following:

vsupdate_KB2707250.exe /Layout

after downloading the package you can create an ISO file and distribute it internally within your development team.

Fore more information about the Visual Studio 2012 Update 1:

- Visual Studio 2012 Update 1 Download Page

- Visual Studio 2012 Update 1 Capabilities

As part of the course “Software Engineering” at Amman Arab University, I’m speaking in the Information Technology Faculty on May 22, 2012.

This session will be about “Understanding ALM And Custom Development”, and the topics include:

1- The importance of Custom Development.

2- Understanding Application Lifecycle Management.

3- ALM Practices from the field.

If you’re interested in attending, contact Dr. Mohammed Nassar(moanassar@aau.edu.jo).

It’s an honor that I have been selected again for the fifth year by Microsoft to receive the MVP award for 2012 in SharePoint competency.

Yesterday, I also received a mail from my MVP lead saying that I’ve been awarded with a custom disk to add to the MVP Crystal Wedge Award, this milestone disk was provided for achieving the MVP award for 5 years straight.

I would like to thank Microsoft and all the community fellows.

If you are interested in learning more about the MVP Award Program, check the following program links:

1. Microsoft MVP Award Program.
2. About MVP.
3. How to become an MVP.

And finally congratulation for all the new and renewed MVPs for this year.

I’m very excited that I have been invited to speak at Microsoft TechDays 2012 in Gaza.

It’s the first official Microsoft event ever in Gaza, I’ll deliver a couple of sessions at two universities.

The first topic is my favorite cloud computing session “Understanding Cloud Platforms: A Rational Comparison” , and the second topic is “Composite Development: A New Paradigm in Software Development Productivity” which is about composing software’s using the modern tools in SharePoint Development Platform, Visual Studio 2010, and Visual Studio Light-Switch.

This Two-Days event will be launched on the 14th of March at Islamic University of Gaza (IUG), and the next day will be at Al-Azhar University, 4 More speakers will be there:

- Naseem Tuffaha: General Manager for Microsoft MEA Business Marketing Organization.

- Ayman Al-Dahleh: Senior Development Manager at Office Team.

- Husni Khuffash: Microsoft Jordan Country Manager

- Ali Nimer: Windows Phone and SharePoint Products Unit Lead at MASADER Technologies – Jordan.

I’ve never been to Gaza before and I can’t wait to meet everyone there!

It’s official, Office 15 is the codename for the next generation of the Microsoft Office Products and Services, and as the CVP of development in Microsoft Office Division PJ Hough announced today: Microsoft will update the cloud services, servers, mobile and PC clients for office, Office 365, Exchange, SharePoint, Lync, Project, and Visio simultaneously, let’s wait the public beta to be released to the public this summer and see the new cool stuff from Microsoft this year.

As part of the course “Special Topics: Career Development” at Applied Science University in Jordan, I’m speaking in the Information Technology Faculty on January 19th, 2012.

This session will be about “Portals in Enterprise: Examining SharePoint Platform”, and the topics include:

1. Portals evolution
2. SharePoint as an enterprise portal
3. Composite development in SharePoint
4. SharePoint in the cloud

If you’re interested in attending, contact Dr. Hesham Abu Saimeh (H_saimeh@asu.edu.jo).

Last year, I spoke at the Expotech Conference in Palestine. They kindly invited me to speak again this year. The speaking tour will start on November 28 until the 1st of December and will take place in four universities in different Palestinian cities.

I will be giving talks about “Understanding Application Lifecycle Management and Custom Development”, “Understanding Cloud Platforms”, and “SharePoint Composite Development”.

So, if you are interested and it happens that you are in Palestine by then, you are more than welcome to join me at any of these events, I will be glad to see you there.

For more information about the schedule; click here.

I will be presenting at Microsoft Jordan Open Door 2011 next week, if you are interested and it happens that you are at Amman by then, you are more than welcome to join me and the other speakers at this event, I’ve included the registration link below in addition to the sessions I am going to deliver, would love to see you all there.

1- Microsoft Jordan Open Door 2011 Official Web Site.

2- Registration.

Breakout Sessions:

1- Day 1/ Developer Track, 03:00 PM – 03:50 PM, 1st, November, 2011:

Business SharePoint Apps in Minutes: The New VS Lightswitch Overview

2- Day 2/ IT PRO Track, 04:00 PM – 04:50 PM, 2nd, November, 2011:

Understanding Cloud Platforms: A Rational Comparison

So, I published my speaking engagements for this year on this blog into a separate page:

I will be updating the schedule information whenever I have any new speaking engagement.

If you’re in the area and interested in the topics, feel free to stop by.

I would like to introduce DotNetArabi, the first Arabic Technical Podcast series, which is organized and managed by Emad AlAshi, a community advocate and .NET expert from Jordan.

Back in March, 2010 at TechEd Middle East – Dubai, I Interviewed Scott Hanselman the well known guru in .NET world, Interview was translated to Arabic by DotNetArabi Team, here is the link for the interview:

Emad Also interviewed me during the first SharePoint Saturday – Jordan event back in February, 2010, and here is the podcast:

Also, here is another interview with me during Jordan Remix back in 2009:

Below, find links to the podcast web site and Facebook page:

1. DotNetArabi Web Site
2. DotNetArabi Facebook Page
3. Emad AlAshi Blog

This is the second post in my weekly reading recap series, In this week I read and try some walkthroughs in different topics and domains including the following:

Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) & BizTalk:

1. Walkthrough: Publishing WCF Services with the WCF-NetMsmq Adapter
2. Walkthrough: Custom Message Processing with the WCF-NetTcp Adapter
3. BizTalk to WCF Data Services (OData Service)
4. Consuming OData from BizTalk Server using AtomPub

Windows Azure, SharePoint, Office 365:

1. Book: Chapter 3: Consuming SQL Azure Data [Developing SP Apps using Windows Azure Book]
2. Video: Developing Custom Workflow Actions with Visual Studio 2010 [Office 365 Video Training Kit]
3. Blog Post: Using SharePoint REST API $filter to specify multiple columns

Note: This is a guest post by Muhammad Arrabi, Microsoft Jordan DPE.

What fuels your passion?

Deciding where to start your career can be as nerve-wracking as it is exciting. Maybe you don’t know exactly what you want to do. Maybe you don’t even have a technology background. Fortunately, Microsoft will help you to build a career that evolves along with your interests and passions.

Jump right in to the deep end

That’s a phrase we hear a lot from people during their first week at Microsoft. And with good reason. From day one, you’ll plunge headfirst into engaging, meaningful projects. Your team members and managers will help you get up-to-speed in no time. It’s a thrilling way to start your career—and it’s only the beginning. Now take the first step.

Visit our website at

www.microsoft.com/university

to learn more about our

Full-Time Software Development Positions

Apply by SEPTEMBER 5th to be considered for our

Dubai Interview Event

October 3-6, 2011

Microsoft Corporation is coming to Dubai to interview for our Software Development Engineer positions—FULL-TIME & INTERN CANDIDATES!!!

Redmond, Washington, USA (CV Submission due by Monday, September 5th to be considered for interviews)

Software Development Engineer (SDE)
Whether you’re creating new code, algorithms or data structures, you are the link between abstract concepts and the technology products used daily by your friends, family and millions of other people around the world. Using your mastery of technical tools, you develop next- generation applications and operating systems, making decisions on design and feature implementation.

Software Development Engineers dive deep into code and work as part of a team of programming experts who solve problems and build powerful new tools. You collaborate with Software Development Engineers in Test (SDETs) to ensure stellar product quality, and you provide technical guidance to Program Managers (PMs) as they communicate user needs and product requirements. As a SDE, you dedicate yourself to producing the world’s most advanced software.

Qualifications:

· Pursuing a B.S., M.S., or Ph.D. Degree in Engineering, Computer Science or related field

· Excellent programming skills. Experience with object oriented programming languages, preferably C, C++, and/or C#

· Familiarity with data structures and algorithms as well as feature definition, design and feasibility

· Ability to translate technical specifications into working code, and solve complex problems with consideration of the end user experience

Software Development Engineer in Test (SDET)

You have an innate understanding of technology. You always know how a program works, even when others do not. You are passionate about making things faster and more efficient, truly pushing software to its limits.

Software Development Engineers in Test are highly technical and you use your technical prowess to build and maintain automation systems, debug and isolate problems and execute creative tests to make sure our software is ready for prime time. SDETs write lots of code—code to test software features and code to extend our automation infrastructure. You work closely with Software Development Engineers (SDEs) and Program Managers (PMs), each contributing equally to the development life cycle. You enjoy breadth in your job and continually look for ways to integrate systems across business groups and products.

Qualifications:

Pursuing a B.S., M.S., or Ph.D. Degree in Engineering, Computer Science, or related field.

Excellent programming skills. Experience with object oriented programming languages. C, C++, and/or C# experience preferred

Familiarity with data structures and algorithms.

Ability to solve complex problems with customer experience in mind.

Ability to author test plans and cases, conduct security and stress tests and debug at source level after identifying, investigating and prioritizing bugs.

Important information:

Information on applying, Microsoft Benefits, including complete relocation, US work visa sponsorship and other perks are available at www.microsoft.com/university

University recruiters at Microsoft review resumes with the following topical areas in mind:

1) Academic Record, 2) Relevant Work Experience, 3) Leadership

Please note we are seeking Software Development Full Time & Intern candidates.

NOTE:Full Time candidates must be graduating Dec. 2011 – August 2012.  Candidates with graduation dates after August 2012 would be considered for internships.

Travel & Accommodations will be covered by Microsoft.

A friend of mine asked me to share what I usually read, So I decided to start a weekly blog posts series recapping what valuable resources I read during the week and at the same time It will help me in saving these links for future.

Below, find my selections for the past week:

1. A blog post illustrating how to split a large form into multiple pages in SharePoint: http://tinyurl.com/3osco7b [SharePoint]
2. Tobias Zimmegrens a SharePoint MVP have a very brilliant blog posts series on SharePoint Development For Performance, this week I read part 8: Control that ViewState [SharePoint] http://tinyurl.com/3kcs5z7
3. What is SaaS (Software As a Service) White paper published in 2001, It’s really important to observe the evolution of such a concept: http://tinyurl.com/27meb3h [Cloud Computing]
4. “Using Custom Controls to Enhance LightSwitch Application UI” Article in CodeMagazine: http://tinyurl.com/3cu22by [Visual Studio LightSwitch]
5. Practicing OData with Windows Live Services scenarios by following the Walkthrough: OData client for Windows Live Services: http://tinyurl.com/4x6epeu [Open Data Protocol]
6. I’ve watched the following Visual Studio videos: [TFS/ALM]
   1. What are directed or DGML graphs?
   2. How do I manage large dependency graphs?
   3. How do I explore existing code using Architecture Explorer?
   4. How do I visualize runtime object graphs?
   5. How do I customize dependency graphs?

This year, Microsoft used the Microsoft IIS Media Services with a Silverlight client to stream the final ceremony of Imagine Cup 2011, and the whole video recording is not downloadable, in this post I am going to illustrate the necessary steps to download and save the final ceremony video in a file with .MKV extension. (and these steps are applicable for any other IIS Media Services Video Streaming Based Files)

Required Softwares:

1. A Microsoft IIS Media Services compatible stream recorder: http://tinyurl.com/ISMDownloader
2. HTTP Requests Monitor (Fiddler): http://bit.ly/GLSq7

Now you have to download the (ISM Downloader) and Install Fiddler.

Retrieving the Streaming Manifest file URL:

The next step will be finding the Imagine Cup 2011 Final ceremony manifest file URL which will help the stream recorder to get all the streaming bits and save it as a single file, to do this follow these steps in the same order:

1- Run Fiddler

2- Make sure that the option “Capture Traffic” is checked:

3- Run your favorite browser and browse to http://bit.ly/oroe3I

4- Now fiddler will start capturing the Http requests that the SilverLight Media Control does, start watching the URL column till you find any URL ends with “/Manifest” as the following:

5- Now you need to copy the manifest file URL by right click on the URL column, Choose Copy->Just Url as the following:

6- You must get the following URL:

http://cdn-smooth.ms-studiosmedia.com/news/smooth/1006643_IMAGINECUP2011_071311_.ism/Manifest

If you open this URL in the browser you will find some XML spaghetti as the following:

Recording the Stream:

Well, to record the video streaming you need the ISM downloader and the manifest URL, and just do the following:

1- Extract the ISMDownloader RAR file.

2- Open the Dos Command Prompt from Start->Run-> CMD

3- Change the directory to where you extracted the ISM Downloader

e.g. CD C:\ISMDownloader

4- Run the following command:

ismdownloader “http://msnvidweb.vo.msecnd.net/o10/SS/CMG_US_CMG_Microsoft/1004/57d99921-e8fe-4b6c-beb8-f08c4fc2c721.ism/manifest” “C:\IC2011FC.mkv”

Note: the ISMDownloader takes 2 parameters, the first one is the Manifest URL, and the second one is the recorded file name and path, so you can change the second parameter to any appropriate file name and path.

Now you have to wait till the recording finish, make sure that you have a stable internet connection because ISMDownloader is still in beta stages.

NOTE: I don’t know if it’s legal to do this, so you will be responsible legally for any future issues .