.NET Rocks!

While at the Prairie DevCon in Calgary, Carl and Richard moderated a panel discussion on the future of the web with panelists James Kovacs, Andrew Nurse, Bil Simser and James Chambers. The conversation ranged over the quality of web content today and a general push to try and improve it, discussions around monetization, the fragmentation of HTML 5, the role of mobile and some of the cool new technologies coming down the pipe to make the web an even more amazing place to build applications for.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

Carl and Richard talk to Mike Diehl about Data Quality Services (DQS) in SQL Server 2012. DQS is a new tool for SQL Server, as Mike points out, Microsoft acquired it. It adds into the suite of tools in SQL Server including Integration Services (SSIS), and Master Data Services. Mike talks about how DQS improves the quality of data by cleansing and de-duplication. Not a typical developer tool, but something any developer working with data needs to know about!

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

While at the Prairie DevCon in Calgary, Carl and Richard chatted with Steve Rogalsky about User Story Mapping. Steve explains how User Story Mapping helps with visualizing beyond a serial list of features into categories of features in the product. The conversation also explores how Kanban, Scrum and other techniques work with User Story Mapping, as well as the struggles of using Microsoft Project.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

Carl and Richard talk to Phil Haack about his life after Microsoft. Phil talks about his viewpoint on open source, both software and projects (not the same!). The conversation also digs into how NuGet works in the open source world and Phil's on-going role with it. Finally, Phil talks about his work at GitHub - he's all about making GitHub more appealing to .NET developers.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

Carl and Richard talk to Tim Huckaby about his work with the latest version of Kinect, Kinect for Windows. Tim talks about his work building interactive kiosk applications for hotels, airports and the like. Gesture is a huge part of the interactive kiosk applications - and Kinect is at the front. The conversation digs into how Kinect for Windows changes the API dramatically, but opens the door to cool new features like facial and finger recognition.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

Carl and Richard talk to Rob Mensching about the WiX Toolset, a popular Open Source project for all your software installation needs. How good is WiX Toolset? Visual Studio uses it for installation of itself! Rob talks about different installation solutions and how he eventually came to develop the WiX Toolset as an XML-centric 'set of sets' hierarchy for managing installations. As Rob says, setup development is development!

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

Carl and Richard talk to Juan Campa about developing software using XNA. Juan discusses the challenges of building XNA games and shows how his product Gearset makes things simpler. Gearset is available as a Lite edition for free or the Pro edition for $35 USD. The discussion continues into building XNA applications for Windows Phone 7 and what the impact of Windows 8 will be for XNA developers.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

Carl and Richard talk to Jason Kaczor about developing Sharepoint using HTML 5. Jason discusses the dangers of making web parts and how HTML 5 is a safer, easier solution to customization of Sharepoint. And yes - you can access all the features of Sharepoint using HTML 5. The conversation digs into how you manage your source, do deployments and consider the cloud in your Sharepoint plans.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

Carl and Richard talk to Keith Brown of Pluralsight about his work with RavenDB and SQL Server. The topic calls back to earlier conversations about the advantages of using NoSQL technology like RavenDB on the front end of an application and SQL Server on the back end for reporting. This is exactly how Pluralsight works, and Keith explains how the implementation is done.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

Carl and Richard talk to Derick Bailey about JavaScript in general and JavaScript frameworks specifically. The conversation starts out with a discussion about the state of JavaScript in general, discussing the recent popularity of Node.js. Derick then digs into Backbone.js and how it works with jQuery to keep things far more organized. He also discusses utilizing MongoDB and RavenDB from JavaScript using JSON as the communication path. The discussion ends with some looks at the future of JavaScript in Windows 8 and the next generation of browsers.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations