Does jQuery ship with SharePoint 2010? (and why you should be using an Ajax CDN)

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jQuery is one of the most popular javascript libraries used by ASP.NET developers.  In fact, jQuery ships with Visual Studio 2010.  It is in the “Scripts” folder of a new “ASP.NET Web Application” or “ASP.NET MVC 2 Web Application” project template.

Does jQuery ship with SharePoint 2010?  Short answer: No.  I see this asked (publicly and internally) a few times a month.  Long answer: You don’t need it to.  Just use it from the Microsoft Ajax CDN. 

Assuming you don’t have to build a solution on a closed network with no internet access, then one of the first things you should consider is to replace all the references in your code to local javascript files to CDN references.  By doing so you get the general benefit that all CDNs offer (not just Ajax CDNs) which is that you get directed to a server the is closer to you.  Also, since browsers cache files based on URL, referencing the CDN from all your code means that different web apps use the same version of the javascript file cached in the browser.  Last, but not least, it means less files you have to maintain on your own servers.

Here’s what a script reference to jQuery 1.4.2 looks like when it is local:

<script src="../../Scripts/jquery-1.4.1.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script>

Here’s what it looks like when referencing the CDN:

<script src="http://ajax.microsoft.com/ajax/jquery/jquery-1.4.2.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script>

So that’s how easy it is to reference jQuery from your SharePoint code.  However, as you can see, this applies way beyond just SharePoint programming.

SIEMENS: Powering Postal Automation Systems with .NET

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I’m sure you’ve heard of SIEMENS.  However, what you may not know is that they create the hardware and software that run in many mail facilities including the United States Postal Service.  About a year ago, Vlad and I made a trip out to their office near Dallas, TX to record an interview about some of the .NET Framework based software they build to power their postal automation systems.  You can find the interview here:

http://bit.ly/Ch9SiemensPostal

Open Government Data and Bing Map Apps

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The Bing Maps team is running a King of Bing Maps contest.  Chris Pendleton just published a blog post on Bing Map App Development Resources over on the Bing Maps blog.  If you aren’t familiar with Bing Map Apps, they are mini applications you write in Silverlight that become part of the Silverlight version of Bing Maps.

http://www.bing.com/maps/explore

You have to submit your app for approval.  Approved apps show up in the Map Apps gallery:

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You bring up the Map Apps gallery by clicking the “MAP APPS” button in the left pane of the Bing Maps UI:

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Map Apps are a great way to visualize open Government data that has the necessary location information. So far, I haven’t seen many map apps do this other than the Bing Health Maps application:

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I’m keeping my fingers crossed that some of the apps submitted will use publicly available Government data as the source for Bing Map Apps.  Will you be the person to submit one and win?  I hope so.

Don’t know where to get publicly available Government data? You can find a few over on the producers page of http://odata.org as well as http://data.gov.  Most of the Government OData services on the producers page of http://odata.org use the OGDI starter kit created by my team.  If you are a Government organization that wants to make your data publicly available on the internet through an OData service, then OGDI is a great way to get started.

June Developer Dinner on Windows Identity Foundation

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Have you heard people talking about things like “claims-based authentication and authorization” or “federated identity” and wondered what the heck that’s all about?  Do you have a need to host a solution outside of your firewall, say Windows Azure maybe (or any other hosting provider for that matter), but still use your Active Directory accounts to authenticate?  Are you looking to allow organizations outside of your own to have access to your systems without having to add their individuals to your Active Directory?  If you answered yes to any of these, then you should check out the June 23rd developer dinner on the Windows Identity Foundation (WIF) and Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS) v2.

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/publicsector/archive/2010/06/11/june-23rd-microsoft-developer-dinner-for-partners-microsoft-windows-identity-foundation-a-new-age-of-identity.aspx

My Gov2.0 Expo presentation on Bing Maps / OData

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You can find my deck here:

http://cid-1f72da7294089597.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/Public/Gov2.0Expo

I plan to have my OData + Entity Framework + SQL 2008 spatial demos packaged/cleaned up some time this week.  I will also record a deeper walkthrough of the demo/sample and publish it to Channel 9 some time soon.

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Random Hacks of Kindness Disaster Relief Codejam

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Be a part of the Random Hacks of Kindness Disaster Relief Codejam on June 4-6 in Washington, DC.

From the http://rhok.org site:

“Random Hacks of Kindness: a community of developers, geeks and tech-savvy do-gooders around the world, working to develop software solutions that respond to the challenges facing humanity today.”

From the http://rhokdc.eventbrite.com/ event registration site:

“It is an initiative that brings together disaster relief experts and software engineers to work on identifying key challenges to disaster relief, and developing solutions to these critical issues. This Codejam is the second in a series of Random Hacks of Kindness (RHoK) events that will bring the best and brightest together for a ‘give camp’ to solve real world-problems related to Crisis/Disaster Relief.”

The Disaster Relief Codejam is sponsored by Google, Microsoft, Yahoo!, NASA, and the World Bank.  It should be an exciting combination of geeks with different technology backgrounds coming together to solve problems for the greater good.

I have yet to participate in the “give camp” community activities that have been going on in the DC area.  I’ve heard all sorts of great stories from them.  This will be my first.  If you have time, consider donating it by participating in this event.

WPF and DataAnnotations

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The System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations namespace was introduce in the .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 to support ASP.NET Dynamic Data.  Silverlight + WCF RIA Services now uses it as well.  I’ve been asked by a few people when WPF will use it.  Why wait?  Karl Shifflett has a sample of how to do it here:

https://www.vimeo.com/11585675

This video is part of a series of videos Karl has covering his Stuff sample application.  Stuff is a sample application Karl put together to demonstrate “WPF Line of Business using MVVM” .  It’s definitely worth checking out:

http://karlshifflett.wordpress.com/2010/05/09/stuff-wpf-line-of-business-using-mvvm-video-tutorial/

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LINQ to SharePoint DSL Extension for VS2010

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http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/993df7ed-2dd2-44e4-98f2-e6233812692b

This extension looks very useful!  I haven’t gotten around to trying it out just yet because I am in the process of rebuilding my SharePoint 2010 dev environment now that the product has released.  However, it essentially gives you “Add Service Reference” like capability so you don’t have to use spmetal to use LINQ to SharePoint 2010.  You can see a video walkthrough of this extension at http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/linq2spdsl/.

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