Long Zheng, author of the popular blog iStartedSomething.com, along with David Golden and Winston Pang has released the Twitter client application called MetroTwit. As the Name suggests it has taken a few cues from the Microsoft’s Metro design style. The interface is beautifully simple, and very clean. It is build on Microsoft Windows Presentation Foundation and .NET 4.0. Silent features of MetroTwit are:

• Infinite scrolling – If you ever want to read more tweets, just scroll down and more will appear almost instantly. Be careful though, it’s addictive and you could be scrolling for hours.
• Windows 7 taskbar integration – You don’t have to switch away from what you’re doing to keep tabs on new tweets. A counter in the taskbar will tell you exactly how many unread messages there are.
• Autocomplete for usernames & hashtags – The people and topics you care about, at your fingertips. Simply start typing any part of a username or hashtag and we’ll find them for you.
• Quick-glance notifications – Read excerpts from new tweet updates as they cycle through in the notifications. If you run out of time, hover over the notifications to stop the countdown to read even more.
• Resizable and reorderable columns – Not all columns must be created equal. You have the choice and flexibility to control exactly how your columns should look.
• Flawless high DPI support – The vector-based user interface powered by Windows Presentation Foundation works and looks even better in high DPI.

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Expression Blend 4 enables you to create websites and applications based on Silverlight 3 and Silverlight 4, and desktop applications based on Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) 3.5 with Service Pack 1 (SP1) and WPF 4. Expression Blend provides support for prototyping, interactivity through behaviors, special Silverlight functionality, and on-the-fly sample data generation.

Expression Blend includes new behaviors that are quickly and easily configured. To support the development of line-of-business (LOB) applications, Expression Blend introduces support for Views and ViewModels.

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The first Release Candidate Builds of Microsoft’s next generation development platform and tools are currently available for download for MSDN subscribers. It will be available for public on February 10 (Download Link). Visual Studio Quality Assurance team member, Kirill Osenkov, explained some of the problems with the product:

“During Beta 1 and Beta 2 it became painfully obvious that the new VS had an obesity problem: it was slow, consumed a lot of memory and the worst thing, with enough modules loaded it stopped fitting into the 2GB address space on 32-bit machines…. In a nutshell, with a lot of new functionality a lot more modules were loaded into memory. Besides, we now had to fully load the CLR (Common Language Runtime) and WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation) at application startup. Moreover, there were all kinds of memory leaks all over the place.”

According to Jason Zander, General Manager for the Visual Studio team in the Developer Division at Microsoft “We got a lot of invaluable feedback on Beta 2 through Connect as well as your survey responses. In particular many of you pointed out areas of performance where we were not at parity with VS2008 and it was impacting your ability to adopt the product. Some of those areas of feedback included general UI responsiveness (including painting, menus, remote desktop and VMs), editing (typing, scrolling, and Intelisense), designers (Silverlight and WPF in particular), improved memory usage, debugging (stepping, managed / native interop), build times, and solution/project load.”

According to the MSDN website, the silent features of this upcoming development platform will be:

• New prototyping, modeling, and visual design tools enable you to create innovative applications for Windows and the Web
• Create a shared vision as a foundation for creativity with SketchFlow ,in Microsoft Expression® Studio , and Team Foundation Server
• Take advantage of new opportunities & capabilities offered by multi-core programming and cloud development tools
• Complete all your coding, modeling, testing, debugging, and deployment work without leaving the Visual Studio 2010 environment
• Use existing standards and skills to target a growing number of application types including Microsoft SharePoint® and Windows® Azure™
• Work your way through multi-monitor support, partner extensions, and a new editor.
• Use the new IntelliTrace debugger to isolate the point of failure within a recorded application history.
• Stay ahead of the curve with proactive project management tools including new reports, dashboards, and planning worksheets.
• Know that you’ve built the right application the right way with manual and automated testing tools.

“The primary motivation behind releasing a public RC was to ensure that we could get broad testing and feedback on the performance and stability work we’ve been doing since the last public VS 2010 Beta 2 release,” revealed Scott Guthrie, Corporate Vice President, .NET Developer Platform. “Over the last few months we’ve been releasing interim builds to a small set of folks who have been helping us validate fixes and measure very large projects and solutions. The feedback from them has been extremely positive the last few weeks – which is why we are now opening up today’s build to a much wider set of people to people to try out.”

“Our goal with releasing the public RC build today is to get a lot of eyes on the product helping to find and report the remaining bugs we need to fix. If you do find an issue, please submit a bug report via the Visual Studio Connect site and also please send me an email directly (scottgu at microsoft.com) with details about it. I can then route your email to someone to investigate and follow-up directly (which can help expedite the investigation),” Guthrie added.

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Tell us who you are?
My name is Andrea Boschin and I’m a 41 years old MVP on Silverlight. I live and work in Treviso, a beautiful town near Venice in Italy. My primary job is as employee for a local company where I develop web based applications for monitoring vehicles through a GPS based solution. I’m also a freelance consultant for companies which want to adopt the .NET Framework technologies. I like writing about Silverlight on my English blog  SilverlightPlayground where I post about my experiences with it trying to give a real world vision. I’m involved in speaking in many events and I’m also president of one of the most active user-groups in Italy (last year we was awarded by Microsoft as Community of the Year 2009). This leaves me a few free time I spend with my wife Daniela and my daughter Gaia.

Tell us about your MVP history, when were you first awarded?
I was first awarded as MVP in July 2007 and it taken me about the whole summer to become aware of what was happening to me. My first year as MVP was on ASP.NET platform. I used this technology since many years before being awarded and I currently do my work mostly with it and with Silverlight. During the second year of MVP that I’ve started for ASP.NET, my expertise has been converted to Silverlight due to my strong involvement on this astounding platform. This makes me the very first Silverlight MVP in my country and one of the first of the world and it is reason of big proud for me.


What do you do in order to keep up with latest tools and technologies?
I spend lot of my night time studying technologies. Usually I focus myself on a particular aspect of an interesting thing and I start exploring it trying to understand how it works, if it can help me and finally I try to implement a bunch of examples. This is the usual flow I start every time I get some news from the various blogs I read every day or when a new interesting beta is deployed. Unfortunately sometimes this does not ends with a real world experience just because I do not have a project to apply what I’ve learned, but many other times I’m able to connect my passion with my work and this makes me a lucky man. This happened with Silverlight, I’ve studied since the first 1.0 beta releases and then I applied to a part of the software developed for the company where I work, with great success.

What does being an MVP mean to you?
Being an MVP mean being on the edge of the technology and due to my passion it is the best thing that may happen to me. I really love to be in touch with the very new releases of early bits and I’ve to thanks the Silverlight team to be so generous sharing with me and other Insiders. But, leaving the personal, it is a great responsibility just because people expect you have answers to any question they do, and they deeply believe that everything you talk about is like gold. This makes me work double to be ready to answer the best to each request because I’m grateful of what the program gives me in terms of knowledge and communication.

What do you do when you are not building software’s?
I’m a family man. I have a wife and a daughter and when I’m not in front of my pc I spend my time on normal day-by-day activities. By the way I really like to travel, take photos, play with my daughter, prepare Italian dishes, and walking on the most beautiful mountains of the world, the Dolomites. But probably if I’m not building software I’m thinking at software. Some of my better ideas were born in my mind during my leisure.

If you could ask Steve Ballmer one question about Microsoft, what would it be?
Hey man, do you drink a beer? …ok, it’s a trick to ask him many questions, but honestly the thing I would really know is how he thinks the world will be in ten years, not only from the technology point of view. I think a man in his position has to have a great responsibility in how the world will evolve in the future and I would like to understand what he think about the argument.

Had a chance to attend “MVP Global Summit”? When and how was your experience?
I attended my first Summit during April 2008, a few months after being awarded, and it was a beautiful experience. The thing I’m most impressed was how people works in Microsoft. I dislike the way most Italian people think at work, and how many companies treat his employees, asking them to achieve results they simply cannot achieve due to missing resources and planning. Entering the campus in Redmond I had the strong impression of people loving them work and that can work with the better resources to reach their targets. It’s just a dream to me, and I’m already enjoying the time I will spent in Seattle the next February at the incoming MVP Summit 2010.

What makes you a great MVP?
I really do not know if I’m great, but if it is true, the reasons are the work and the passion: the work, to be always on the borderline of the technology and the passion to make the problems of people asking my help my problems.

What you think about the MVP’s role in promoting technology in your region?
In my country MVPs play a great part in this field. Thanks to the great work made from my MVP Lead in promoting the award and the awardees we have a big chance to be in contact with people and companies which ask us solutions to their problems and the occasion to promote the most innovative and reliable technologies.

What is in your computer bag?
I usually have only my laptop. I don’t like to bring with me something I cannot put into my laptop, starting from paper. I really hate paper and often look forward to the time when the paper will remain in form of trees and all will be an electronic transaction. Ok, I know… I’m a dreamer.

Who are your top 5 favorite MVPs?
It is very hard to select only 5 people, so my choice goes to some people I take as model and to someone else I read every day. They are:

• Raffaele Rialdi – The sole person I know that knows everything from the technical point of view. Believe it or not, when I say everything I mean exactly all the things…
• Davide Vernole – Davide has been the person taught me to be an MVP. He is the INETA country lead for Italy and he is the most community-oriented person I know.
• Shawn Wildermuth – Shawn to me is a model in how to write technical posts. I love how he is able to explain things, disregard how complex are them.
• Laurent Bugnion – He did a great work in his MVVM Light Toolkit for Silverlight and WPF. You have to look at his work on codeplex.
• Dave Campbell –SilverlightCream is a great resource to be up to date with Silverlight.

If you get a chance to suggest one conference in your region? What would it be and why?
The best conference I know by personal experience is for sure the Tech-ED Developers EMEA. I visited it last time in Barcelona but in 2009 it took place in Berlin. Unfortunately I missed it last year, but the experience I made in the Ask The Expert booth during November 2008 was one of the most intense of my working life.

What is the best thing that has happened since you have become an MVP?
The best for me has been to be invited to speak about technologies, especially Silverlight. If someone had told me a few years ago I for sure didn’t believe him because I had never thought at me as an effective speaker. Being invited plays a great role in my personal satisfaction.

Who are your top 5 technical experts in your professional circle (from your country)?

• Davide Vernole
• Andrea Dottor
• Mauro Servienti
• Davide Senatore
• Raffaele Rialdi

Absolutely in random order…. They are great professionals, always ready to give me suggestions and some of them are also good friends.

Which was the last book you read?
I love reading narrative, instead of technical manuals I often am unable to finish. While I prefer to read blogs to be up to date in my work, in my free time I read books that are completely stranger to tech. The latest I read was a novel from Stephen King, Duma Key.

If there was one place you could travel to, right now, where would it be and why?
Recently I’m fascinated by Egypt and I want strongly to visit Pyramids as soon as possible. My daughter is 8 years old and in a few time she will study the Egyptian story so I would like to show her what she is studying.

How can one be a part of MVP Club? Any suggestions for them?
The first is to forget to want become and MVP. You have to help people and being satisfied of your work and probably when you’ll forget the MVP award, you will be awarded.

Any Message you want to give to the readers of MicrosoftFeed?
Don’t be afraid of new technologies. Just try them and evaluate if they can help you in your projects. There will be many times you will find effective and fast solutions.

Your contact information?

• MVP Profile Link – https://mvp.support.microsoft.com/profile/Andrea.Boschin
• Blog / Website – http://www.silverlightplayground.org
• Twitter – http://twitter.com/aboschin
• Facebook – http://www.facebook.com/andrea.boschin
• LinkedIn – http://it.linkedin.com/in/boschin

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Tell us who you are?
My name is Ibrahim Ersoy. I’m MSP of Anadolu University attending “Bachelor of Public Management”. Besides MSP I’m a Software Developer, 3D Enthuastic and licensed chess-player from “Republic of Turkey”. I’m Interested in new and upcoming technologies such as Servers, Business Systems, Game Development Technologies. I’m studying on integration these technologies together these days.

Tell us about your University?
Anadolu University is a state University founded in 1958 and it is one of the most prestigious universities in Turkey. Anadolu University is located in Eskisehir. Currently it has over 1.400.000 students attending.

Tell us about your MSP history, when were you awarded?
I’m awarded this year i.e. 2009-2010. I thought about it several times to apply before but in 2009 I’ve applied and awarded as MSP.

What do you do in order to keep up with latest tools and technologies while focusing on your education?
Actually, I’m very comfortable with my education because my exams start on April 1st. So, I have planned a schedule. There are times when I’m totally working with tools and technologies and there are times when my focus is on education and exams. If you plan your life then there’s nothing you need to worry about.

What does being an MSP mean to you? and What makes you a great MSP?
In my opinion, MSP is a student with high technical background. A great MSP must have one or more of these:

• High technical ability
• Valor
• Sociable
• Creative
• Passion for technologies

Tell us about faculty support in promoting tools and technologies?
We will be planning to apply for DreamSpark this year. Sadly, my faculty isn’t very interested in new tools and technologies but I’m going to change that this year.

If you could ask Steve Ballmer one question about Microsoft, what would it be?
Not only asking but being in the same place would be well enough for me. If I had a chance, I would ask “Why doesn’t Microsoft unit WPF & XNA together in a single product so that they can be too well prepared for rivalry against Adobe’s AIR?”

Had a chance to attend “MSP Summit”? When and how was your experience?
No, I didn’t have a chance to attend but I would love to.

Who are your top 5 MSP’s from your country? and why?

• Nazif Berat – He’s genius, serious, always upto some projects and always busy with his works & developments. I’m glad I know him.
• Ismail Sen – He has a great technical background in C# besides he likes to help people.
• Olcay Kuk – He is the leader of a great IT Community “CETURK”. If you talk with someone just like you, high technical expertise and social then you enjoy it. Olcay is one of them.
• Omer Faruk Zorlu – He likes to help people, talk and share knowledge.
• Ahmet Ali Suzen – He is a MCT and MCITP. When I have a problem, I always ask him in the first place He always finds a way to help.

What you think about the MSP’s role in promoting technology at your campus?
I think Microsoft Student Partners are the bridges between Microsoft and Universities. As you gain expertise and present it to your student friends; not only they and you but also the University itself gain benefit. By doing so the University becomes much more prestigious.“MSP” notion is very important in “Still Developing” countries such as “Republic of Turkey” and that’s why I would like to thank Microsoft for keep going of this Partnership Program in my country.

If you get a chance to suggest one conference in Middle East? What would it be and why?
“Game Developers Conference” would be great because I cant even tell you how much people are interested in Game Development in my country let alone Middle East. People of West side doesn’t know this region’s cultures, history and importance of living 3 regions’ believers and people with different races living as equal and side by side. It would be a chance to show the world what it is like to live here with all the references from past and now.

What is the best thing that has happened since you have become a MSP?
People keep asking question about technologies much more than usual. Thats the best thing happened since I’ve become MSP. People follow and know what you’re doing and studying on. I think I’m making a difference.

Which was the last non-technical book you read?
Richard Luecke – Strategy (Harvard Business School Press)

If you could do so, how would you plan your academic studies differently?
I wish I had a chance to study Software Engineering or Computer Science in my university. I would study one of them if I had a chance.

If there was one place you could travel to, right now, where would it be and why?
Monaco I love Monte Carlo.

How can one be a part of MSP Club? Any suggestions for them?
Technically by sending an application form with a video interview and then selected by Microsoft Company (in your localization) would be enough for joining the team.If you want to become a man/woman, IT History will never forget for your efforts then always keep in mind “MSP Club” helps you achieve this. Work Hard, Always seek knowledge, ”NEVER GIVE UP” because there will be always barrier in your road to “SUCCESS”.

Who are your top 5 technical experts from your country?

• Yakup Tarık Kranda
• Evren Ayan
• Uğur Umutluoglu
• Hakan Uzuner
• Volkan Atasever

What are your future plans?
Becoming a Product Manager of XNA or Developer in DirectX/XNA Development Team. These two are currently my biggest plans but I have other plans as well.

What two or three accomplishments have given you the most satisfaction? Why?

• Given seminar in Besiktas: This was my first game development presentation. I was excited as everyone for the first try. But when finished my presentation I feel relieved.
• Became MSP: As someone using and developing with Microsoft Technologies such as myself, always dreamed of getting in touch with Microsoft Corporations much more closer. This was full of joy for me.
• Became RM: I have become release manager for an open source .NET Framework 3.5 based CMS project. This is my first great responsibility I possess up to now. Its really entertaining for me.

Any Message you want to give to the readers of MicrosoftFeed?
I advice them to follow MicrosoftFeed because there are so many qualified people and their most precious thoughts in here. They would find it as a guide and shape their future as they like to be.

Your contact information?

• Blog / Website – http://www.iersoy.com
• University Website – http://www.anadolu.edu.tr/
• Twitter – http://twitter.com/iersoy
• Facebook – http://www.facebook.com/ibramersoy
• LinkedIn – http://tr.linkedin.com/in/iersoy

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Today Seesmic launced Seesmic Look, a Windows based twitter client. Using the power of Windows Presentation Foundation, the user experience of Seesmic Look is awesome. Seesmic Look works on Windows XP, Vista and 7 with .NET Framework 3.5 SP1. It also works on Windows based touch screen tablet computers. It can also be controlled by a remote on a computer-connected TV screen. According to Seesmic “Seesmic Look is a unique way to immerse yourself in the real-time web. Optimized for Windows 7, this innovative interface allows you to feel the pulse of millions of users or be inspired by individuals of your specific interest. Beginners learning to understand real-time can stay engaged and connected without even logging into Twitter, while experienced users can take advantage of Look’s powerful features in creative and imaginative ways.”

Seesmic Look is a great way to discover and navigate across twitter. The main navigation menu includes trends, inbox, social, favorites, interests, channels, and searches. Tweets appears as message bubbles in the timeline. Selecting a specific tweet will highlight the options related to that tweet. Tweets will refresh automatically but you can click a refresh button to upate it anytime you want.

Find out what’s popular now or in the past day or in the past week by clicking Trends in the navigation. Tweets are by default in twitter chronological order but there is an option in Seesmic Look to change it to alphabetical view or TV like playback mode.

In Interests, you can find popular accounts that matches your interests. There are many sub-categories that will help you to drill down into topics according your interest. Channels is a aggregated and branded view of all twitter accounts associated with a group or organization. It gives you a complete tool to follow any specific group or organization.

Search in Seesmic Look is much more powerful. Track any word or phrase being said on twitter in real time and display it in Look’s unique playback interface. There is also a Light Theme available if you are not a fan of dark theme, just go to settings and change the theme. These are just few of many features in the new Seesmic Look. Do try it out!

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According to Rami M. Nassar (User Group Leader – DubaiDev.Net) “We witnessed Stephen talk about design patterns, coming from MVC, passing MVP and for WPF/Silverlight the usage of MVVM. Stephen explained why we should be using this and also the trouble we’d run into when not. He took us through a basic implementation of a XAML page (view) that has two texts on it and a supporting class (model) that has two properties as we should not let the viewmodel have any knowledge of the view he explained why we would have to use some INotifyPropertyChanged interface implementation to tell the observer (view) the data has changed in the viewmodel (and the model respectively). For this he advised us to use a base class to do that work and leverage that code in all of the derived classes. For Collections he instructed to use the generic ObservableCollection types and have a ViewModel for the content of that collection to which a new view should be bound when using the data in a view. He showed us a trick how to work around not having commands in Silverlight leveraging attached property on controls. Finally we went through several best practices and optimizations, rounding it all up with a Q/A session. Stephen provided the deck for Techies.ae to attach to the notes.”

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With the launch of Silverlight 4 at PDC, alot of developers are now working on the new features provided by this platform. Silverlight enables development of the next generation of Microsoft .NET based media experiences and Rich Interactive Applications also known as RIA for the World Wide Web. Here at MicrosoftFeed, we will now try to highlight different cool and interactive Silverlight applications showcasing the power of this platform. Silverlight is delivered as a cross-platform and cross-browser plug-in that exposes a programming framework and features that are a subset of the .NET Framework and Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF).

Today we will start with Car Configurator for Mazda. Although you may not speak German, the smooth experience of the Konfigurator comes through via the images and motion. Build your own Mazda using the new car configurator’s high resolution images, 360-degree exterior view and deep-zoom interior views to bring you closer to your choosen Mazda. Click here to see the complete coverage of Silverlight based applications and games.

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Microsoft with it’s ongoing collaboration with Facebook released a very exciting new developer resource: the Microsoft SDK for Facebook Platform. This SDK combines the power of Web, client and social technologies to enable millions of developers to transform their imagination into next generation application experiences.

No matter what your application flavor is, the Microsoft SDK for Facebook Platform supports the development of applications across Silverlight, WPF, ASP.NET, ASP.NET MVC, and Windows Forms, enabling easy consumption of Facebook services delivered through the Facebook Open Stream API. According to the press release by Facebook team

We’re excited to announce our official support for the Microsoft SDK for Facebook Platform, which Microsoft released today. This SDK contains rich social features and offers something for almost any kind of Facebook developer who is building with Microsoft technology, whether you’re implementing Facebook Connect or are building a Web-based or desktop application. If you’re one of the six million Microsoft software developers just starting to build for Facebook, you can use this SDK to make your applications more social, letting your users share and connect with their friends.

If you’re building on the Web, you can use the ASP.NET library to easily build Facebook Connect sites or canvas applications using APIs and a rich set of ready-made Facebook controls. On the desktop, you can easily integrate Facebook Connect into your Silverlight, WPF, or Windows Forms applications.

The Microsoft SDK for Facebook Platform joins the ranks of our other supported libraries, alongside PHP, JavaScript, iPhone, Adobe ActionScript 3.0, and Force.com. You can check out the libraries with which you can build on Facebook — both officially supported and community supported — in the Client Libraries article on the Developer Wiki.

Releasing this SDK is Microsoft’s latest move in helping make the Web more social. When we held our Facebook Technology Tasting event this past April, Microsoft was there to showcase applications built on Silverlight and .NET that utilize the latest features of Facebook Platform, such as the Open Stream API.

Every developer has a story. Microsoft want to know yours. How did you use the .NET Framework to create a killer app? What parts of the .NET Framework (ASP.NET, ADO.NET, WPF, WCF, WF, etc.) did you use to develop it? What other Microsoft products (SharePoint, SQL Server, Windows Server, etc.) were used in the solution? What challenge did you solve? How did you integrate your solution with other solutions and systems? Participate in the Tell us your story competition and you can win one of over $16,000 in prizes.