.NET Rocks!

Carl and Richard talk to Bart de Smet about the beta of Reactive Extensions (Rx) Version 2. Currently in beta when the show was recorded, Rx 2.0 works with .NET 4.5, both for desktop and metro, as well as Silverlight 5 and Windows Phone 7.1. Bart talks about how Rx lets you write LINQ expressions over top of events, completely changing the way you think about responding to events. If you're tired...

Carl and Richard talk to Bill Wilder about Hadoop on Azure. Hadoop is a technology for analyzing massive (petabytes) amount of data efficiently. Originally developed by Yahoo, it was given to the Apache Foundation as an open source project. Google, Facebook and others have all contributed to the project. Microsoft has come late to the game, but with a very compelling offering - you can run Hadoop...

The first of many alternative energy geek outs, Carl and Richard talk about solar power. The boys talk about using solar in the home in the form of thermal as well as photovoltaic, at utility scale with solar thermal, even space-based power. The conversation explores the huge diversity of photovoltaics, including concentrators and quantum dot technologies, the advantages and disadvantages involved...

Carl and Richard talk to Bryan Hunter and OJ Reeves about programming in Erlang. Erlang is a language built by the telecommunications industry for maximizing concurrency, distribution and reliability. If you're looking to develop applications that take advantage of parallelism, you owe it to yourself to look at Erlang! Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

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 techn...

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 s...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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. Su...

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...

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 — h...

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 JavaScrip...

Carl and Richard Geek Out about SmartGrids! This show picks up where the Electricity show leaves off. Smart Grid technology is a somewhat loaded term for evolving the one-way dumb electricity grid into a smart, two-way system that can reduce the load on the grid and save money at the same time. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

Carl and Richard talk to Clemens Vasters about his work on the service bus. These days the service bus is called the Windows Azure Service Bus - part of Azure. Clemens talks about how the service bus makes building reliable applications easier as well as how making the service bus free for a few months has driven traffic up to record levels and the challenges that brought to the team. Support this...

Yes it's true - Carl and Richard are talking to John Petersen about piracy again. In the wake of show 736 on SOPA, a lot more information has come to light on other methods of attacking piracy - using international treaties. And once again, there are problems with the implementation that create nasty side effects for the public. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/net-rocks/donations

Carl and Richard talk to Eric Sink about his latest work in distributed version control. Eric talks about his latest project called Veracity, an open source distributed version control system that makes it easy for widely distributed teams to share source. The conversation digs into the sometimes subtle variations between source control systems and why their users are loyal and vocal to their pref...

Carl and Richard talk to Rob Labbe about the Security Development Lifecycle (SDL). After a quick detour down the SOPA discussion, Rob fills the boys in on how the SDL maps neatly to a regular development lifecycle, just including security every step of the way. Rob also introduces the tools of the SDL, providing support for every step of the development lifecycle, from requirements to design to im...

Carl and Richard talk to Jeremy Likness about Silverlight 5. Is Silverlight dead? Not by a long shot. Jeremy talks about the great work going on the Silverlight today and how it still is the most efficient way to build applications that run on both Windows and OSX. The conversation drills into the new features of Silverlight 5 and dispels a lot of the myths around the future of Silverlight. Jeremy...

Carl and Richard talk to John Petersen about the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). SOPA, which is now defunct, was an attempt to legislate means to stop piracy and counterfeit goods. John digs into the problems with the legislation and the misinformation surrounding it. The conversation also explores alternatives to SOPA, the Megaupload shut down and how much harm piracy is actually doing in the worl...

Carl and Richard talk to Troy Hunt about ASP.NET Security. Troy is an advocate of the Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP) and wrote a set of blog post applying the top ten exploits to ASP.NET. Troy walks through all ten exploits and how they apply to ASP.NET. He's also rolled the posts together into a PDF file - have a listen and a read! Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/ne...

Out of Microsoft and off to Telerik, what will Chris Sells say? Chris starts out talking about his last year at Microsoft, working on Javascript in Windows 8, culminating at Build. Now Chris has moved to Telerik, focusing on building controls for the Windows 8 world that developers will love. The conversation ranges over HTML 5, XAML, XBox, Windows Phone 7, Kinect, tablets and more! Support this p...

Part of a group of shows recorded at DevConnections in November 2011, Carl and Richard talk to Scott Willeke about reporting technologies. The conversation explores the challenges of a widening set of data sources for reporting, including NoSQL. Scott then digs into the issues around embedding reporting solutions into your applications as opposed to web-based reporting. Reporting - love it or hate...

The first Geek Out show of the new year, Carl and Richard talk about electricity. Call it a primer for many geek out shows to come, the conversation starts at the fundamentals of electricity, from individual atoms all the way to multi-gigawatt high-voltage direct current transmission systems. What does the future hold for the electrical grid? The conversation starts here. Support this podcast at —...