Visual Studio 2008 includes some cool and exciting new features for building client applications and for building both 2-tier and n-tier data applications. In this session, we will cover the following:

1. Client Application Services. These provide a way for you to add remote login, roles and profiles to client applications. Today, you can log into a Web site such as Amazon and the Web site knows who you are and what your preferences are, regardless of what computer you use. Client application services gives you the ability to add this same functionality to a Windows application.
2. Windows Forms and Windows Presentation Foundation Interoperability. Over time, WPF will increasingly be the way you build client applications. In the meantime, with VS 2008, you can use your Windows Forms and user controls in your WPF applications and you can use WPF controls in your Windows Form applications.
3. Data enhancements. VS 2008 adds the new TableAdapterManager to manage updating of related tables, ADO.NET Synchronization Services to maintain a local copy of data that doesn’t change often, automatic separation of DataSet code from TableAdapter code, and the Object Relation Designer to map a database model to an object model.

Robert Green is a senior consultant with MCW Technologies and a Microsoft MVP. Before joining MCW, Robert worked at Microsoft for 8 years, most recently as a Program Manager on the Visual Basic product team and previously as a Product Manager for Visual Studio, Visual Basic, Visual Studio Tools for Office and Visual FoxPro. Prior to that, Robert was a Vice President and co-founder of The Information Management Group, a consulting and education services firm in Chicago. Robert has been a frequent speaker at technology conferences and user groups. Along with Ken Getz, Robert co-authored AppDev’s Visual Studio 2005 and 2008 and Windows Workflow Foundation courseware, and appears in the video training for these courses, as well.

Nov 27 2007
Speaker: Cal Schrotenboer
Topic: Introducing Silverlight

The goal is to create Web Applications which are consistent regardless of browser or platform, a development environment which is friendly to both designers and developers and Web Applications which are indistinguishable from desktop applications. Cal's presentation will evaluate how realistic these goals are and how far along Microsoft has progressed in achieving them.

Below are quotes from Silverlight authorities regarding its potential:

Rocky Lhodka says of Silverlight: "The Web isn't dead, but it is about to undergo the biggest transformation in the past decade. Given a choice between writing complex JavaScript that must accommodate differences in browsers to interact with an antiquated browser API, or writing C# or VB .NET code that is consistent regardless of browser or platform, and which uses a modern API, I think most developers would choose the latter, hands down. And that's Silverlight..."

Adam Nathan says of Silverlight:: "A promising alternative to Flash, Silverlight enables the creation of rich web content and applications using a lightweight add-on that is friendly to both designers and developers"

Laurence Moroney says of Silverlight: "With Silverlight (and AJAX), the goal is to create Web applications that are much more like desktop applications, and ultimately, to create applications that are indistinguishable from desktop applications."