I just an article published over at dotnetslackers.com. Check it out: http://dotnetslackers.com/articles/ado_net/Modeling-domains-with-The-Entity-Data-Model.aspx

Microsoft has put together a nice little Dinner for all the Swedish people coming to PDC.

Read more and register here: http://blogs.msdn.com/johanl/archive/2008/10/15/tr-ffa-andra-svenskar-p-pdc-2008-i-los-angeles.aspx

Microsofts biggest investment in Virtualization Technology has finally arrived. For various reason I've been using VM-Ware the last year or so instead of VPC / Virtual Server but it's going to be interesting to really try HYPER-V out. I just installed my new laptop with 64-bit Windows Server 2008, time to activate and install the virtualization role :)

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More information ...

on the announcment: http://blogs.technet.com/stbnewsbytes/archive/2008/06/26/it-s-here-windows-server-2008-hyper-v-is-available-for-download.aspx

on Hyper-V: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/us/virtualization-consolidation.aspx

The Data Programmability team has set up a council of advisories to influence the future of EF, EDM, Linq to SQL and Data Services.

Looking at the members in the council, I must say that I couldn't wish for anyone else (well except for myself but that's because I really want to be a fly on the wall in these discussions :).

The members? Well recognize any of these names?

Eric Evans - http://www.domainlanguage.com/about/ericevans.html
Stephen Forte - http://www.stephenforte.net/
Martin Fowler - http://martinfowler.com/
Pavel Hruby - http://www.phruby.com/
Jimmy Nilsson - http://jimmynilsson.com/

I thought you might :) This is really the news of the year and I'm very excited to see what the future of the DP team will hold.

Good job Danny and the rest at DP!

Read Danny's post here: http://blogs.msdn.com/dsimmons/archive/2008/06/03/dp-advisory-council.aspx?CommentPosted=true#commentmessage

As a additional puzzle jigsaw in our effort to bring deep competence to developers in the community, we've set up a partnership with factor10 where they will provide classes in deep development methodology.

First out is a Domain Driven Design course with the world-known Jimmy Nilsson. Jimmy has written the second most read book on DDD (hard to beat Evans who invented the term ;) and is a well known speaker, mentor, consultant and a Microsoft Architect MVP.

15th of September he will be doing his course in Stockholm and 16th of October he'll be doing a repeat in Gothenburg. Seating is limited so book well ahead.

To reserve your seat if your Swedish speaking, go to: http://www.cornerstone.se/Web/Templates/CoursePage.aspx?id=2513&course=COUR2007121911330802408597&epslanguage=SV 

If you speak English, use Google translator: http://shrinkster.com/yic

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More on Jimmy; http://jimmynilsson.com/blog/
More on factor10; www.factor10.com
More on DDD; www.domaindrivendesign.org

I'll be there, http://www.microsoftpdc.com/ will you?

For Swedes: We've talked about coordinating our travels and hotel visits for all Swedish attendees. We'll be putting up a post in the forums at SWENUG's website: http://www.swenug.com so look out for that.

A week or so ago I put up a web cast in Swedish on  how WCF 3.5 supports REST and how the Syndication API's work. The demo shows of a little service that exposes the event-log via RSS.

If you understand Swedish, have a look over here: http://www.cornerstone.se/sv/Roller/Systemutvecklare/Systemutveckling/Demo-Tv-Utveckling/Demo-Tv-Windows-Communication-Foundation-RSS-och-Restbaserade-tjanster/

I'm sitting here looking at the download page in MSDN. RTM of Visual Studio Team Suite is now downloadable!

Look at this thing of beauty:

On my agenda for TechEd was to hook up with some of the guys behind these technologies to finalize the bits and bytes on my new course. Now it's done and up on our web site (http://www.cornerstone.se/course/showcourse.aspx?CNO=COUR2007110715131501128080) (in Swedish though).

We will be putting dates there in next week and will be open for reservation.  We have some partnerships in development outside of Sweden as well for delivery in english. 

Here's the short content list in English, I'll have the full one in a week or so:

Part 1: C# and VB Changes
Extension Methods.
Anonymous Types.
Automatic Properties.
Lambda Expressions.
Object and List Initialization.

Part 2: LINQ
Query Expressions.
Using SELECT and WHERE.
Linking results with JOIN.
Aggregation and data projection.

Part 3: LINQ To SQL
Manage data transformation from relation databases to a object model.
Fetching data.
Using CRUD, Create, Update and Delete.
LinqDataSource for ASP.NET Scenarios.
Concurrency and data versioning.
Optimizing queries and models for different scenarios.
Using Stored Procedures with LINQ To SQL.

Part 4: Entity Framework and LINQ To Entities
Mapping formats in the Entity Framework
Differences between Entity Framework and LINQ To SQL.
Using LINQ with the Entity Framework.
Using Entity SQL for dynamic scenarios.
Overview of the Entity Client
Working with complex types (value objects).
Using functions in the mapping, adding stored procedures and queries.
Design and modeling with entity Framework, Database first vs Model first

Part 5: LINQ To XML
Creating XML documents with LINQ to XML
Using LINQ with LINQ to XML

Please mail me (or comment) feedback on the content.

Information from the product team members in my ATE booth says that the final bits are built (or actually re-built :p) and shipped to testers.

It won't be long now!

A picture really says more then words in this case .....

Just got the email informing me that they require my presence ;-) at the Ask The Expert area in TechEd. Really fun, I was ATE in 2005 as well, that really rocked. Extra fun is that my colleague Fredrik (http://fredrik.nsquared2.com/) also will be working at the ATE this year (second in a row for him).

If you're going to attend, drop me a line, call me or visit me at the booth and I'll share a cold one with you.

And here it is: http://www.cornerstone.se/course/showcourse.aspx?CNO=COUR2007090715261701796076

My colleague Fredrik (http://fredrik.nsquared2.com/) who is ASP.NET MVP and extraordinary Silverlight jockey has just out the last touches on our new Silverlight course. 2-days packed with all things silverlight. Great job Fredrik!

Here is your oppertunity to work for Swedens largest, coolest and geekiest (is that even a word??) training company.

We are looking for instructors with deep knowledge, passion, fire, a will to teach others and a desire to bee seen.

Cornerstone is front-edge when it comes to technology and our instructors are involved in lots of early adopter programs from Microsoft like the Vista / Longhorn Touchdown programs and the Longhorn TAP program. That means that we are very early, sometimes first in Europe, when it comes to new Microsoft technologies.

Cornerstone instructors are also trusted to speak on several conferances and seminars, the most recent being MSDN Live where 4 of our instructors travel around with Microsoft to present the latest technology.

You can find more information on Monster: The add is here!