Visual Studio 2010

In this practice, we are going o read a couple of texts about Microsoft Visual Studio 2010, and then we are goind to summarize them.

But first of all, our first task is to read about Visual Studio 2010: Visual Studio is a pack or suite of development tools, with its own development environment. With this we can create our own applications, web sites or services, or other complements for Microsoft programs. It supports different programming languages such as C, C++, C# and Visual Basic. We can buy it here, or we can download a trial version here.

First technical article it it about how to build Visual Stuudio projects with TFS Team Build 2010. This will allow to create our own projects for Visual Studio without having Visual Studio installed. First of all, we need to have installed (or to install if not) some features like Team Build, the platform .NET Framework 4, Windows SDK, and the DSL Assembly. If we have created a VS project before, the project settings will be automatically applied to our new project file. If not, we must set some features manually. Another thing that we need to import manually is the certificate; We must to download it and to encrust it in our project. After this, we can make a new project as usual.

Second article it is about how to build SharePoint Projects with TFS Team Build. Like the other example, we have to install Team Build, the platform .NET Framework 4, Windows SDK, and the DSL Assembly, and in this case, we need the SharePoint Assemblies too and copy the SharePoint Tool Assemblies and files to the GAC. Then, we can build our SharePoint project, and finally we have to create a WSP package by adjusting the parameter /p:IsPackaging=True in the UI, and activate the package to the MSBuild command-line arguments.

Office Development Video Series

In this practise, we have to choose four videos from this Microsoft development web and summarize them. All this videos are about devoloping for Office Applications with Microsoft Visual Studio.

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First video talks about how to do smart tags for Word. First, we need to create a new word add-in, and once our new project is open, we need to enable smart tags. Another previous pass is to import the Microsoft Smart Tags Library to our project. Then, we can create a new class for our custom smart tag (remember that we need to import libraries for smart tags and for Word tools).

When we are developing our smart tag, we can use the class Action for every smart tag action. These actions allows us to open a pop-up with a message, open a office document or our web browser, etc. Then, we can add the words that our smart tag refers to and develop the actions. After this, we have to develop the code that needs MS Word to found our smart tag when it is writed.

Then, we can perform with more details the context of the action of our smart tag. Finally, we can create the instance of our smart tag class in the add in main class, and then the new smart tag will be avaible on our MS Word.

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Second video talks about how to add a custom control to a sheet in MS Excel.

First of all, we have to create a new MS Excel addin, and add a new Ribbon tab. Then, we can add the controls we want to this ribbon tab. On each control event, we have to implement the code to detect sellected cells, and then the code needed to perform what we want on the selected cells. Remember that if we are using some control that works with boolean (yes or not) values (like a check box), we have to develop an action for both values.

If we don't want to get always our addin avaible, we can go to the main class of the addin and develop the required code to delete the addin when the sheet it is opened more of once, or make it avaible every time our sheet is opened.

Then, when we open our MS Excel sheet, our new control will be in the add-ins tab on the ribbon.

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Third video talks about how to develop an Office Solution using ClickOnce; for instance, from a MS Excel sheet.

For doing this, we need to run our MS Visual Studio as administrator, an open a new project as a MS Excel Workbook. When we hace our solution developed, we have to asign the .vsto extension to the "application" MIME type.

Then, we have to go to the properties tab of our project, the choose the publish tab and choose what prerequisites are needed to run our solution, and specify the period of time to check for updates. Now, we can choose the localization for publishing our solution and where is it going to be installed, using the publish wizard in the Build menu.

Once our application is published, if we make some changes to the source code, they will be updated to the publishing localization if the updates cheking was selected, and the aplication will be updated instantlly.

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Last video talks about how to connect a list in MS Excel to a SharePoint list.

First of all, we need to create a new Excel WorkBook in Visual Studio, and then we can add a neadd-in botton to the ribbon. This botton is going to call a public method to create the list from SharePoint.

Now, we can save the URL of our server and the List GUID in two strings; to get the URL of our server is easy, we just need to copy and paste it; to get the List GUID, we need to go to our list settings, and get the url from here; we just need the code generated before "List=%", and to replace the "%2D" characters by a "-".

Then, we can use the function "Add", but introducing the parameters as a "AddEx" function. We can write first "AddEx" for use the assistant to know what parameters introduce, and then, just delete "Ex". After this, we can run our sheet.

If we press the Add-.in button, we will get the SharePoint list, and if we modify it from MS Excel, we can update the changes by right click, select "Table", and then ""Synchronize with SharePoint". And of course, if we made some changes from SharePoint, we can update our list from Excel doing the same steps.

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Linux

For those who don't know what Linux is, I will explain it; Linux it's a free operative system (what that you use to operate your computer, like Windows 7 or Mac Leopard OSX), developed under the GNU General Public License; this means that Linux costs no money and anyone can manipulate it's source code (the "heart" of the operative system). In this practise, I'm going to explain some general concepts about Linux using for help me the Linux Oficial Home Page.

In the Linux web page you can registrer yourself; this is not compulsory, but with your work you can help other devolopers and, if you are a very prolific collaborator, you can earn som Tux Points interchangeable with money in Amazon. With this you can get information and code from other devolopers and participate in forums, that it's a good way to help others and help yourself. Registration it's very easy and typical: you just need to enter your personal data (name, last name, country...), choose two passwords, and enter you email (if you have two or more, you can also give it).

Like other operative systems, Linux haves a large catallog of applications, but the main difference with others O.S.s, it's that many of them are free. The number and the type of applications changes between the different distros (distributions; the several formats of Linux: SuSE, Fedora, Ubuntu...). There are applys for any purposal, like other O.S.s, being administration applications the most powerful: multimedia, graphics, devolopment, office... like Linux, many oh this applications are under GNU General Public License and anyone can use their code to make it better or develop other applications.

If there is something good in Linux, it's the large amount of information and documentation; There's a "how-to" document for pretty much everything, and normally you can find all the help on the internet. But be carefull, because it's easy to get lost searching what you need, or maybe that what you found it's not what you need; this is the main problem of all the documentation generated by every Linux devoloper (remember that if anyone can develop a program for Linux means that everyone can generate documentation for it).

As I said, Linux haves many distributions; this distros are packages designed for every user archetypical profile; for users who want to use Linux for entertainment purposes, there is, for example, Ubuntu with many multimedia and leisure programs; for user who want to use Linux as a "work office" O.S.s., there is SuSE; for advanced users who want to use their O.S.s at the highest level, there is Fedora, etc. Every distro haves its visual desing, but pretty much everyone haves the same performance.

If you have a good connection and you know how to burn an ISO image (that it's a conversion of a DVD or a CD into a file), maybe the best option for getting a Linux distro it's downloading it. ISO images are very huge files, so if you don't have a powerful computer, maybe the best option for you it's order a CD or DVD of the distro that you want, and it will reach you by mail or courier service.

Linux started as a hobby by a finnish student called Linus Torvalds, and it was created from a UNIX base. Linus initial purposal was what Linux actually is; a free operative system shared for everyone, made for everyone and developed by everyone. Over the years, Linux was not only a project of an operative system and became other interesting and very kown projects, like Mozilla web browser, OpenOffice.org or GNOME.

If you want to learn more about Linux, or if you want to increase your knowlge about this O.S.s, there are several online courses with some practise and teory lessons. There are to some "how-to" tutorials and Linux tips and triks that you can consult when you want.

My personal opinion about this operative system is that it's not the perfect one, although Linux people say it, and this is what dislikes me; because if even Linux is free and you can make with it any thing you want, this doesn't means that you can make with Linux things that you usually make with other O.S.s; for example, Linux it's not a very good platform for playing games, make designs works, develop graphical applications or, the worst of all, make programs for other operative systems, because the big problem of Linux it's that this O.S.s "excludes" the other ones, in some ways. Is it true that Windows or MAC OSX also do it, but in the case of Linux the problem are not the economic interests, it's the O.S. performance. You can make, for example, a game in Ubuntu and it will work with Fedora, SuSE, Red Hat or someone else, but if you want to make a game for Windows, and all of use know that Windows is more popular, we can't do it without using a virtual machine running in Windows, for example.

And because my purpose is working with graphics and multimedia in the future, I don't think I'm going to be a big friend of Linux. In summary, Linux it's perfect to users who want to sift and dig into every corner of their computers, but not for everyone else. For making work Office, design, develop or using day-to-day applications, work with multimedia, or just relax, I recommend other operative systems.

Microsoft Silverlight: Installation Instructions, System Requirements and Uninstalliation

In this practise sesson, we are going to learn how to install and uninstall Microsoft Silverlight (an application for web browsers similar to Adobe Flash Player).

The installations instructions are very similar for all web browser, even though in the Silverlight web this process is explained in two different ways for Microsoft Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox. In any case, if we want to install this program, we must to download the Silverlight.exe file and run it; and if we are running a Windows Vista operating system, we will must confirm our installation permissions. Once the installation program is running, we must read the license agreement (tht thing that we never read), click "Install now" and restart our web browser. For finish the installation, we must verify it using the Silverlight site.

In the System Requirements page, we can see what web browser and what operative system is compatible with Silverlight. Note that this program is available with any Windows operating system over Windows XP and any Macintosh operating system over 10.4.11 version, but there's not any UNIX operative system compatible.

To uninstall Microsoft Silverlight it's the same process in Windows XP and Windows Vista: just go to control pane, after closing every running web browser, and click on Programs; then, select Microsoft Silverlight and choose "Uninstall". The main difference is that if we are using Microsoft Vista, the Operating System will ask us for some permissions. Uninstall this pluggin in a Mac operating system it-s too a very simple process; just close your web browser, go to your hard disk, open the library, open the "Internet pluggins" folder, and search a file called Silverlight.pluggin. Then, delete it from your computer (moving to your thrash and emptying it). And if this doesn't works it's because we are using and older Microsoft Silverlight version.

Anyway, I think it's better to use Adobe Flash Player; it's faster, lighter and therefore better, and it's compatible with more operating systems and web browsers. I'm sorry Microsoft, but web browsers are a terrain not made for you. Keep making awesome videogames and huge consoles, that one occurs you better.

Get started designing your own professional publications

In this lesson, we are going to learn some techniques of Microsoft Publisher; This program is usually used to design any kind of document with text, newsletters, bussiness cards or web sites. For this, we are going to do this Microsoft Publisher course.

With Publisher we can start our work with a predeterminated design if we don't want to start from zero; when we choose the type of work we want, Publisher displays some thumbnails ofavailable designs.

In this program, every element works as a independent element; for example, you can do the same things on a image or on a block of text.

After few advices, we are going to make a practise with Publisher and a "Test Yourself" exam, with two questioms about Publisher like "Why Publishr allows to amateur users to make professional works?".

Next point is how to add and edit text to a work in Publisher; If we want to add a new text box, we have to click the Text Box Tool in the Objects toolbar, draw the area of the text on the page, and type our text. If we want to change our text position, of change its size, we can do it in any moment. Also, we can change the text box format by adding a border, changing the background, etc., by using the Text Box command on the Format menu. We can also change the text size, colour, alignment, etc.

In Microsoft Publisher we can add a "Continued notice" in a text box automatically when we are typing a text that is too long using the Create Text Box Link tool. This tool allows us to navigate throught the different pages of our work.

Then, we made another practise and more questions about Publisher, like "What are the main differences between Publisher and another word processing programs?".

If we want to add an image to our work, we have to use the Add Frame Image tool. Using this tool we can add a Clipart, a simply rectangle or an image that is in our hard disk. Also, we can resize, move or crop our image once it is placed on our work. Publisher haves a Picture toolbar with some options for resizing our image, adding a border to it, etc. Of course, we can also wrap our image with the text like other programs (for example, Microsoft Word) and choose different text wrapping options.

Finally, we made another practise and few questions with a "test yourself".

Creating a Presentation with Microsoft Power Point 2007

In this practise, we must to do this Microsoft Power Point 2007 course, and write a summary in our blogs.

When we open Microsoft Power Point 2007, we can see four main areas; the slide pane, where we work directly on the slide, the place holders, where we add text, images, or other elements, the slides tab where we navigate through our slides, and the notes pane, where we can add our own notes.

If we want to add a new slide, we can use the New Slide button, and there are two ways to use this button; clicking the top of the button, to add directly a new slide, or clicking the bottom for choose a layout for the new slide.

A Alyout allows us to add different items on our slide with many differents designs; there's a tittle slide layout, for showing the first slide, or the Tittle and Content layout, used for adding different contents to a slide such movie files, pictures, or text, with a all-purpose placeholder. With this all-purpose placeholder, we are able to format a text in many ways: chanching the form and paragraph formatting, fitting text automaticatly, etc.

With Microsoft Power Point 2007 we are able to use slides from other presentations, inserting it directly, or chanching it using a different format or layout.

After a little advice about the use of the note editor, we made a practise session and a little test yourself, as usual in other practises.

If we want to make a more attractive presentation, we cane use different themes included in Microsoft Power Point 2007. A theme can change the background design, the color scheme, font types and sizes and placeholders positions. To choose a theme, we must the design tab, and choose a theme clicking it. It will directly apply to our presentation.

There ar two ways for inserting images or other items in a slide; the first method consists in clicking the clip art icon in the placeholder, choosing an item, and placing it in our silde. The other method is using the insert tab on the ribbon, that works at the same way.If we want to adjust a picture, we can use the Picture Tools, that are avaible when we have our picture selected.

If we want to align an element on our slide, we can use a single tool, the Arrange commands, that works for every element.

Then, we made a practise session about choosing themes, insert a picture and an animation effect. After that, we made some exercices in other Test Yourself.

When we are creating a Slide Show, we can see how it's going to look using the Slide Show view. With this view, every slide fills the screen and we are able to navigate through different slides using the navigation arrows or the mouse central wheel. To open this view, we must click the Slide Show icon or press F5 on our keyboard.

With Power Point 2007 we are able to check spelling and review the comments as Microsoft Word, just clicking the review tab on the ribbon.

With handouts we can print our presentations using th printing preview. In this preview, we can choose different handouts and how they will look when our presentation are printed. We can also use this tool to print our speaker notes, with the same method.

With Print Preview we can also see how is going to look our presentation if we are going to print it in grayscale instead of color printing, and save it in our computer with the color mode what we have choosed.

Microsoft Power Point 2007 can also copy our presentation to a folder or burn it in a CD by clicking the Microsoft Office button and choosing the Publish option.

Finally, we made another practise session about making a presentation with Power Point and we have answered some more questions in other test. And then, the practise has ended.

Calendar I: Outlook calendar basics

In this course we are going to learn how to create a calendar using Microsoft Outlook 2007. This is the summary of all I have learnt.

Using the Calendar tool, we are able to schedule activities many activities like appointments, meetings, events, or tasks. There are two ways for see what's on our Calendar; clicking alendar in the Navigation Pane, or clicking a date on the Date Navigator. Then, we are able to navigate through different days, weeks or months. The, the course explain us the differences between all the types of entry:

-Appointment: An activity that involves only us, at a scheduled time.
-Meeting: Like an appointment, but inviting other people.
-Event: It's an activity that lasts all day long, but you can do other things while an event is active.
-Task: Like an appointment, but without a scheduled time.

Create a new Calendar entry it's very easy, and we only need to do three steps: rest the pointer over the desired time in our calendar and click, type the details, and drag the handle to make the appointment longer, if we need more time. If we need to invite some people to our meeting, we have to use the Meeting Request tool, and if we are making a task and didn't finished it yet, Outlook 2007 will automatically move it forward and it will appear on the current day until we reschedule it or check it off.

Then, we made a little practise session about all the things learned, and created some new entries. After this, we made some exercices with questions about the different types of entries.

If we have some calendar entry that occurs over and over again, we don't hace to program it every week or month; there is the Recurrence feature, that allows we to set up a recurrence pattern. Outlook 2007 reminds us programated entries 15 minutes before they start, but we can change this "remind time" with a longer (or shorter) value, adjusting the settings in the Reminder box. Also, we van color-code our entries to make them more visible.

One of the new features is that if any of the invited people to a meeting it's busy, of it's "out of office" at the moment at which we have programmed it, they can say it using the border color of the calendar.

Finally, we made a new practise session, another test, and finished the course.

Up to speed with Outlook 2007

In this exercice, we have to watch and listen this video tutorial about the new features of Microsoft Outlook 2007 and make a summary.

The new Microsoft Outlook 2007 version comes with a some new features, like the navigation pane, that now it's collapsable, and the To-Do bar. The new message pane has a new design, and like the other Microsoft Office 2007 applications, commands are organized in groups at the top; for example, the message tab that allows you to create a new e-mail with any design you want, available whe you are writting a new message.

Also, Outlook 2007 allows you to see then calendar and your contacts list without close the message, so you can edit their setings while you are writting a new e-mail. Another new feature it's the new method to insert images; it's easier than earlier versions, and allows you to choose different frame styles.

The Quick Toolbar from Access 2007 it's present here too, with some habitual commands like undo, redo, save, or anything uou want to add.

In summary, the new Outlook design it's not just a pretty look, it was made to do a lot of things in a very short time.

Up to speed with Access 2007

In this part of the practise, I made a Microsoft Access 2007 Course in this web page. This is the summary of my experience.

One of the new stuff is the Getting Started page. In this page, we can see many categorized templates that let we to start any job we want. Acces 2007 works like older versions, but there's two new features: The Ribbon (a toolbar with the new Microsoft design) and the microsoft Office Button. The Ribbon is organized in tabs, and each tab contains different commands, organized in logical groups. The Microsoft Office Buttons contains some basic commands for work with files, a list of recents documents, and a button to change or view the program settings.

After watching the video demonstration, I made apart of the Microsoft Office test. This part of the test questions you some things about all the things explained before, like where can you set the Acces options (in the Microsoft Office Button).

After doing the test, the video tutorial explain us how to create a new database: In the getting Started page, we are able to select a template and choose a name for it. Then, explains us how to add a table using the new features in the ribbon tab "Create". With a very similar method we can add forms and reports, thanks to the Ribbon Tabs.

After this, I made a practise that involved creating a new databes, with a table, a form and a report, with the method explained in the video tutorial (very easy), and a test, with some questions about this method.

Access 2007 uses a new file format: .accdb. This new format make databases mroe secure, more compact and more reliable if a file does become corrupted. To convert an older database we only have to open it with Access 2007 and save it as Access 2007 database, and the method is almost the same to do the inverse process.

The next practise was quite simple; open a database and convert it to many Access versions. After that, I made a few questions about all the things learned. Then, the practise was over.

Excel 2007: New Features Summary

In this part of the practise, I'm going to talk about new features of Microsoft Excel 2007. The most obvious new feature It's the new design of the toolbar. It contains a new surface with the most used tools, like copy and paste, distributed in many tabs with different functions; insert (for insert things), page layout, formulas...

With this Excel version we are able to view how our sheets are going to look when they are printed, and edit the layout in any ways we want; adding a header or a footer, editing margins, etc. Another usefull tool it's the Switch Windows button; with this tool we can switch different sheets at the same time.

Also, Microsoft Excel 2007 works as other and older versions, so we can perfectly work with it also if we haven't experience with this new version.

PRÁCTICA 1b: On-line Exercises (www.ego4u.com)

First I made some exercises on Simple Past tests here. I have some problems with the use of was/were, so I did the exercise of this form. For my surprise, I made all the exercises well without problems.

I want to use this blog after ending the english practises, so I made some writing exercises here. And another time, I hadn't any problems, even with relative clauses (who, which, whose), a thing that I ever thought it was difficult.

In order to finish, I made some exercises of vocabulary lessons here. I see there a very interesting lesson about Both, Either, Neither, Nor and So; With this exercice I have some problems with the use of when do you have to use this forms. I think I must practise more with this thing.

Finally, I think that will be impressive if here there were some exercises of pronunciation, like that "Learn English" videogame. I have some problems with some words, like "images", that I don't really know how to say it.

PRÁCTICA 1a: Reading Comprehension

http:// www.eingang.org/Lecture

Follow this link, and read the lecture. Read it through and find:

1. the device used in China as a calculating machine, 4000 years ago
The Abacus, the most common of which comes from China, was man's first attempt at automating the counting process. The abacus is not really an automatic machine; it is more a machine which allows the user to remember his current state of calculation while performing more complex mathematical operations than could be performed on hands and feet alone.

2. the first mechanical calculator
Pacal's Gear System; A one-tooth gear engages its single tooth with a ten-teeth gear once every time it resolves; the result will be that it must make ten revolutions in order to rotate the ten-teeth gear once. This is the way that an odometer works for counting kilometers: The one-tooth gear ir large enough so that it only engages the next size gear after 1 km has passed.

3. the scientist considered the "father of computing"
Blaise Pascal.

4. the machine used by H. Hollerith in 1890 to read the US census
Hollerith & Tabulating Machine; This machine was so successful that hollerith started a firm to market it which later became known as IBM.

5. the computer developed by Konrad Zuse in 1941
The computer known as Z3; It was controlled by perforated strips of discarded movie film.

6. the digital computer built by engineers at IBM and H. Aiken in 1950
The Harvard Mark-I; It remained in use at Harvard until 1959, even though other machines had surpassed it in performance, providing vital calculations for the navy in World War II.

7. the device designed by Alan Turing to perform logical operations
The Turing device, a hypothetical machine.

8. the giant machine which had more than 2,000 vacuum tubes
The ENIAC, the giant machine developed by John W. Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert at the University of Pennsylvania.

9. the company that designed the first microprocessor in 1971
Intel; the microprocessor was a specialized integrated circuit which was able to process four bits of data at a time.

10. the creators of Microsoft
Bill Gates and Paul Allen in 1975 approached Ed Roberts of MITS, the company who developed the Altair, and promised to deliver a BASIC compiler. The did so, and from the sale, Microsoft was born.

11. the first computer with a graphical user interface and a mouse
The first generation of Macintosh,

12. the main uses of the Web and where it was developed
The Web can used for looking up informatio on publications, shopping for books, computer or CDs, investigating staff or research at universities, downloading pictures, games or other files...