I don’t know how long this free resource has been available from Microsoft, but I’ve set aside some time and started on the first stages of the online training called .toolbox. This is pitched as a fun online learning environment, where you can learn basic design concepts along with the fundamentals of creating Silverlight apps.

Using Expression Studio tools, you’re taken through a selection of courses and tutorials of increasing difficulty. These are designed to introduce you to the rich tool set in the Expression Studio and demonstrate their practical use in the design and development of applications. At the end of each course, you can also take a test in order to build up your score and earn badges as you progress from “Rookie” to “All Star” status.

Combine this with a free 60 day trial of Expression Studio Ultimate and you’ll well on your way to establishing a really good foundation for the development of Silverlight and WPF applications.

On the second attempt to build my Virtual Development Environment all went as before, until I got to Task 8 on the Configuration Wizard. During this task I was presented with the SqlException message, stating that an exception was thrown when attempting to open the Shared Services database. This was annoying, it worked just fine the first time round and I didn’t do anything different as far as I know, so why did it now fail?

I fumbled about for a bit, trying unsuccessfully to rerun the Configuration Wizard and getting the same error. I turned to my colleague Alistair Laing who quickly boiled the problem down to the configuration of the SQL Server TCP/IP network protocols which were disabled.

With TCP/IP enabled, Task 8 completed successfully following another run of the SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard.

Thanks Alistair!

I've been dragged into the world of MOSS 2007 development. It's not been an easy start with the requisite build of the virtual development environment taking forever to complete. The pain with this has mainly been due to the ton of updates that follow the clean install of Windows Server 2003, MOSS 2007, Visual Studio 2008 and Office 2007. I could have sought install media with the latest service packs and saved time - lesson learned.

In an attempt to improve the VMs performance, I’d decided that once the install for MOSS was successfully finished, I’d relocate the VHD to an external HD. Unfortunately I discovered that under the Windows 7 Virtual PC, if Undo Disks is enabled it doesn’t tolerate a relocation. Virtual PC deletes the Undo disks when you try to re-point the VM settings to a new location and you don’t seem get an option to cancel out of this. Another lesson learned.

Starting again, this time with no undo disks. I’d just copy the VHD at the completion of each installation stage, dropping the VHD into a suitably named folder - a bit like taking a snapshot.

While this has going been, I've been casting my eyes over a few SharePoint books in preparation for my development training.

Workflow in the 2007 Microsoft Office System.

Microsoft SharePoint Building Office 2007 Solutions in C# 2005.

Pro SharePoint 2007 Development Techniques.

The first thing I need to do is get to grips with is SharePoint Configuration, then I can move onto understanding the various development tasks.

In the ever changing world of software development, there are times when you need to pick a set of standards/patterns/frameworks and just go for it, ignoring any newer developments and techniques that come along. The reason for this is that you want to establish a consistent predictable implementation that will allow for easier estimation and maintenance. If you were to adopt the latest and greatest during the development of a project you would end up with an inconsistent mess that is either difficult to understand or you would blow your timescales and costs.

Having completed one or two projects using your tried and tested standards you continue to ignore new developments and techniques in favour of predictable solutions. There is some merit in this as you can more accurately estimate the tasks associated with a given problem based on your past experience using your now standard methods.

While you work away with your standards, the world moves on adapting to the new. Eventually you realise that people around you are talking a different language with new terms and phrases. You're a dinosaur.

It's time to move on, catch up again and establish another new set of standards to use while building applications. I’ve just caught up with Domain Driven Design, using “.Net Domain-Driven Design with C#” by Tim McCarthy.