Maverick's Space: Windows Vista

Virtual classrooms for WPF recording live + we had a video shoot

Fri, 04 May 2007 16:19:20 GMT

The virtual classroom session's recording is live and available at

http://www.microsoft.com/india/virtualclassrooms/ondemand2.aspx

Also Tarun sir is getting interviewed by the CNBC tv 18, as well our co. was featured at NewYork Times (i'll post its details very soon).

Interviewed by Shereen on CNBC India. The interview will be telecast at the following times this week and next week

Day	Time
Thursday, May 3, 2007	7 PM
Saturday, May 5, 2007	9 PM
Sunday, May 6, 2007	12:30 PM
Sunday, May 6, 2007	11 PM
Thursday, May 10, 2007	7 PM
Saturday, May 12, 2007	9 PM
Sunday, May 13, 2007	12:30 PM
Sunday, May 13, 2007	11 PM

NOTE: The telecast times do change occasionally so please check the channel’s ticker at the bottom.

update : - Virtual Classroom Sessions for WPF at Microsoft

Thu, 12 Apr 2007 10:56:43 GMT

The Sessions are live at http://www.microsoft.com/india/virtualclassrooms/default.aspx

And yeah! this time, i have a brief biography at Microsoft speakers list http://www.microsoft.com/india/webcasts/speakers.aspx#Brij

The Ultimate in Online Training Environment is here!
With Developer Virtual Classrooms, you'll enjoy the benefits of LIVE human interaction from the comforts of your desktop for FREE.

Develop New Age Applications with WPF

This Classroom will discuss all the pillars of WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation), and enable you to experience the joy of developing new age Win Applications with much ease and performance. The instructors also walk you through some WPF applications.

Score more than 80% during the online evaluation and earn yourself a certificate of participation from Microsoft.

Register Now for FREE!

Registrations Close at 1800hrs on Thursday 19th April. Limited Seats Available

Chapter Details

Date

Introduction to WPF

Apr 23, 2007
1700–1830hrs

Introduction to WPF Controls

Apr 24, 2007
1700–1830hrs

Data Binding in WPF

Apr 25, 2007
1700–1830hrs

Resources and Styling with WPF

Apr 26, 2007
1700–1830hrs

Deployment of WPF applications

Apr 27, 2007
1700–1830hrs

Register Now for FREE!

Registrations Close at 1800hrs on Thursday 19th April. Limited Seats Available

Speakers: Tarun Anand & Brij Raj Singh

©2007 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Microsoft is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. Review our Privacy Statement. If you prefer not to receive future promotional e-mails of this type from Microsoft, please send an email at erase@microsoft.com We will promptly update your preferences; however, you may still receive previously initiated promotional communications from Microsoft. This e-mail is intended for distribution within India.

WPF Perf and 3d - Part 1 - Ecosystem of applications

Mon, 05 Mar 2007 05:30:19 GMT

Happy Holi!

I never want to start my conversation with that word “Sorry” which shows any kind of regret…but that’s how I feel to make myself wait for writing this long awaited post.

So I was supposed to post about the 3D with WPF and the ecosystem of tools

When I started with learning WPF , that first professional designing tool that I came across with was Aurora…an awesome tool at that time (don’t know how it’s performing this time, as you had to put in your email id and wait for the download email for each months CTP..which is a pain and the tool was worst with its performance).

The bracket talk must have told by now that I was longing to see other tools come by my way, the Evolution took its course and there it was Microsoft Expression Interactive designer ® Now called Microsoft Expression Blend ®, meanwhile I also saw some 3D tools coming up and people working over some converters to convert a 3D file made in 3ds max, or a file with flash animations to the compatible WPF code with animations.

I have two cases / kind of work that people / designers are with while working in WPF.

You are a designer who is supposed to come up with the snapshot design of forms, and you are also supposed to generate styles out of it, once the design is selected AND all the design could expect to have is a li’l bit of 3d objects and 2d animations.
You are a designer and are supposed to design an application, which has nothing, but 3D all around, may be some products to show, or some other kind of representation but 3D.

What about Developers?

Ans. I expect developers to use Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 with Orcas. No more talks about developers, I’ll talk to them only in later posts.

So …let us take the First Case.

Design snapshots and Generate styles

Note – the table is in order of usage

Tool	Usage	Format
Microsoft Expression Graphic Designer	Generate the snapshot picture for the form	Xaml, png, jpg and all basic picture formats
Microsoft Expression Blend	Take the xaml, and pic out the styles to create the style resources for yourself	Xaml – obviously
Microsoft Expression Blend	For animating the objects	Animations are default as resources in xaml, but give them keys if you want the developer brothers to control them

The Second Case

Note: - the 3D graphic tools are with options and usage is limited to the kind of formats they generate, use as per your own budget and case. Optional are marked with Green color, chose at least one

Tool	Usage	Format
Microsoft Expression Graphic Designer	Generate the snapshot picture for the form	Xaml, png, jpg and all basic picture formats
Electric Rain ZAM 3d	Excellent to work with fresh, as well imported formats, the files are not structured properly though when you import from other formats like 3ds, but the tool is good	Xaml
Autodesk 3ds Max	They are not players in xaml, but indeed they are the BOSS of 3D world, you can get to them for generating awesome 3D effects, and port them using ZAM	.3ds files
Blender	A small but powerful tool, can’t say more didn’t worked much with it.	Xaml
Microsoft Expression Blend	Use the xaml pieces generated using blender or ZAM and animate / place them accordingly, it’s fairly simple	Xaml

Alright the ecosystem doesn’t end here, there is more.

The project that you create with Blend, is a normal Visual studio project for Orcas, and your developer friend would easily be able to code with the project that you “The Designer’ has designed. To make sure that design is not generating any errors you can also run and test you code in blend itself, and can even do a bit of coding as well, though the coding editor matches nowhere to the ease with Visual Studio, but what more a designer can ask for…….

I am exhausted by colors today! Ah ! it’s such an awesome festival, one of its kind, I am proud being born as Indian, and human.

Namaste!

WPF Perf and 3D - A New Fake Dimension

Mon, 22 Jan 2007 08:16:22 GMT

WPF has lured the public by showcasing the ultimate UI rendering capabilities....

GLASS, Bitmap effects, Brushes, 3D, Animation almost every sort of UI related tech. is mapped in the WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation).

as this is just a blog post i won't go into detail over how WPF works, but would tell you a punch line "WPF bypasses the UI related work directly to Graphic Processor (your graphic card)".

you might ask, what if it doesn't ? / what happens if my super powerful / ultra speedy CPU does it, won't that do ?

answer is Dear, your Graphic processor is especially meant for it, the point was Windows applications were not being able to make use of it, you could have used it earlier, but then go on use GDI / DirectX....that unmanaged kinda environment...ohh...it sucks

What ? ESPECIALLY MEANT?

Answer - dudes, it has certain algorithms as hardware logic on the Graphic board, which does some really complex calculations, that if you leave them to a software process (CPU), they might take 100% more time for getting rendered.

So, now you've got WPF .....

A Dev - "Alright Brij...I'll start coding my new Racing Game in WPF, 3D is there, ANimation is there...what else, and easily programmable....."

Brij - "Boss! it ain't possible first, second you'll require 3 times more better Machines to run the game thus developed"

"Then what WPF is there for"

WPF - is just a UI development tool for win apps, and the animations or such vital gaming operations are not clock bound for WPF, WPF reaches direct to conclusion if the animations are not done in given time, your animation will be skipped to reach the conclusion of storyboard.

We just couldn't even expect photorealism from a WPF scene, no matter how hard youw work.....some things are missing, and they are indeed missed to achieve the goal of performance - How many times do MS had to tell people, it ain't made for GAMES

Well, i'll talk some solid points related to WPF 3D, and it's perf. one by one in the next post meanwhile, if you are ineterested check out the given links to know more about WPF and 3D technologies.....a whole series is coming up just stay tight....i can assure the series won't just be a repetition of these links....they will have more details then these links.....

The best whitepaper over WPF perf. yet

http://blogs.msdn.com/kiranku/archive/2006/10/30/wpf-performance-whitepaper.aspx

The WPF 3D team blog

http://blogs.msdn.com/wpf3d/rss.xml

The Hardware knowledge for better rendering in WPF

http://blogs.msdn.com/wpfsdk/archive/2007/01/15/maximizing-wpf-3d-performance-on-tier-2-hardware.aspx

Here is the plan for my upcmoing posts

1. Ecosystem of applications for 3D developement in WPF.

2. Know how of 3D, and some key functions / algorithms

3. Hardware required / and WPF competence in Computer Graphics (3d, animations)

meanwhile i prepare my contents for these posts, i'll also write up some posts about the contents that people sometime forget to use while coding with WPF.

India momentum session at Taj ambassador

Sat, 16 Sep 2006 08:09:52 GMT

I delivered a session (2 hrs.) yesterday at Taj ambassador hotel, for the India Momentum Program.

The Program targets the enterprise customers, and is trying to penetrate into the enterprisem for letting them know about the capabilities and the functionailites that windows vista, and office 2007 offers.

I was accompanied by Dhaval chandra (Our Business development manager), and Mr. Tarun Anand (My Boss), and Mr. Govind Shekharan (Tech. consultant at tpf).

Tarun Sir, and Govind delivered a session on office 2007, and i delivered the windows Vista part.

alas, My Vista just couldn't get connected to the Projector, and i thought that i might not be able to show the demos (especially the CRIS demo), but once everybody seem toget ready for a personal show of the demos, i just swept them off their feets......i promise i had to find a way out for these logistics problems.

I see a lot of people are worried about the Business Desktop deployment, i'll surely go through it once i have some time from the cRIS thing.

Apart i am starting the VistaEvangelism.Com very soon....I am sorry i couldn't go to the meeting today, as i am frail...

PS - they made a video for my presentation, i'll give a link when i have it with me.

Webcast session at Microsoft

Sat, 05 Aug 2006 13:17:34 GMT

Hi Friends,

Last week was hectic, as well exciting, i was suppose to deliver some 5 webcasts, "All about WPF" at Microsoft, With Tarun Sir, and know what, he just couldn't turn up for anyone of them, so i was having a chance to go forward and prove my skills...

The details, and On demand webcast is available at http://www.microsoft.com/india/webcasts/ondemand.aspx

I'll improve this post later, with ppt's and code demo links...but this is just like keeping a log.....

Chilllllllliiiiiiinnnnnnnggggg.....

Vista Beta2 installed, with AERO effects

Mon, 10 Jul 2006 10:45:12 GMT

Today morning Boss delivered me the Vista Beta2 DVD, and asked me to get my hands dirty with this, i was struggling with Vista March CTP since 3-4 months, and was never been able to get the AERO installed, not even on my new Lenovo Laptop, we invested a lot on this laptop.

It'a a cool machine (vista rates is No. 1), Lenovo 3000 N 100, with 1 GB RAM, and intel Centrino Duo processor, I tried a lot of hacks but i just cud never crack it...

Today everything just went fine.... The Voyage Milestones

1. I already had Vista Over Vista, so deleting the windows.old dir. was oooooof! so i just found a hack...

restart Vista
at the boot screen hit the <f8> key
boot into "safe mode with command prompt"
rename windows.old to windows.old1

use the following command to delete the folder and it's contents

del windows.old1\*.* /F /S /Q

/F : force delete on read-only files
/S : include subfolders
/Q : suppress confirmation prompts

2. Started installation of Vista.

3. when Vista is installed, go to Control Panel -> System, and try updating the Graphic Driver, Select "Let me browse my cmputer", and then select "Let me choose from the drivers" remove the check from "Show compatible", and select "Lakeport drivers" from Intel driver's list.

restart the system.

Then when sys. is restarted go to themes, and change the theme to AERO.....

Who aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa ooooooooowwwwwww

i am attaching the pics also

Windows Vista Pres. at Vertex, Gurgaon

Wed, 05 Jul 2006 10:18:17 GMT

we presented at Vertex technologies, gurgaon...

This time, i just didn't used the ppt, and we (me, and Tarun) talked with demos only, all in all this one was pretty cool presentation..

I always have lack of words while talking... and i am tryin to improve myself with it...

watching a lot of Don Box Videos to improve my talking style...

MS is giving away a set of MUG (with office 2007 logo) ,and a cool small drinking bottle (With Windows Vista logo)...they are really coool, i got a pair for Vandana also, she was delighted to have them...

But, Man ..... Saurav did his pres. (Office 2007) like a GOD, i must say he was perfect with everything, i m trying to create my own style......

WPF Webcast at Microsoft

Mon, 19 Jun 2006 13:02:57 GMT

Hi,

I am just coming back from the WPF webcast session (http://www.microsoft.com/india/webcasts) from the Microsoft, all in all it was hectic to setup my lappy in the netwrok, so i decided to give the presentation by ppt only; and i miss giving the demos to the dear audience.

Tarun, started the presentation, and we ended on a +ve note that we r coming with a new series of WPF webcasts for a week, and got a positive nod from the managers also.

Here i am providing the temp. link of my ppt's, and some demo.

Follow the link and download the ppt.

http://rapidshare.de/files/23490813/the_source_ppt_and_code.zip.html

Please let me know, if you have any questions, or difficulties downloading it.

Thanks guys

WinFX Renamed to .net Framework 3.0

Wed, 14 Jun 2006 05:31:03 GMT

The First email, that i got today from Microsoft, said this............whhhhhhhhaaaaattttt?

"WinFx is renamed as .Net Framework 3.0, and InfoCard is renamed as CardSpace", i am not against renaming, and Somesagar judges the point of renaming well, but don't you think that it's too fast of we to develop so many frameworks one by one, when did developers get a breath, to stay still and say 'Ok i am pretty done with this tech."

first Ms launched 1.0, then 1.1, then 2.0, and now 3.0, 3.0 is built over the top of 2.0, and obviously stands a chance to be called a new framework, but it's too early, first MS should freeze the Vista, and then it should quote onto the new framework for it.

Never Mind, guys, that's the life of a developer, keep studying.........

Start with Windows Vista

Fri, 28 Apr 2006 09:00:51 GMT

Today i got clear instructions, and a somehow clear path to work over windows Vista (especially Windows Presentation Foundation).

Tarun Sir asked me to collect my new Lenovo 3000 N100 Laptop from office, and start working.

From now on, i'll upgrade this blog with whatever i go through, during my work with Vista.

I'll soon, put up a picture of my lappy with Vista inside.

Keep hanging guys n gals.