Author Archive

Another blog post of mine just went live on Safari Books Online. This one is on Using Database Migration.

I have one more blog post waiting to be published at Safari Books Online and there may be more coming. The next one will be a Tip and will build on the reset of the series showing you what that mysterious Configuration.cs that I briefly mention in this blog post is used for.

I am really excited to start a new position today with WorkSpace Communications as a Senior Developer/Administrator. I am glad to be back doing what I love (and believe in) – extending Lync and Unified Communications to businesses regardless of their size.

I will provide more details and blog more about what WorkSpace Communications is doing n future blog posts.

Another Safari Books Online blog post. This one is on using an Entity Framework against an Entity Framework.

After this series is over (two more coming) then I am going to do some posts on Lync 2013 and the newest version of UCMA (4.0). I rebuilt my big development box to run Windows 8 and now I need to get all my virtual machines created and Lync installed.

I did another Safari Books Online blog post. This one is an Entity Framework Tip.

I have one more blog post for Safari that is waiting to be published and two more to write. Its been fun blogging for other blog sites.

Entity Framework

Posted: April 18, 2013 in Entity Framework, Me
Tags:

I did a guest blog post for Safari Books Online titled The .NET Entity Framework Code First.

I have two other blog posts for Safari Books Online on the topic of Entity Framework and I have one or two posts planed for my blog.

Enjoy.

I have lots of fond memories surrounding NextUC and I see that now it has been acquired by ConnectSolutions.

For more info – http://www.connectsolutions.com/company/blog

Good luck guys. I wish I was back there.

My Lync Holy Grail

Posted: January 30, 2013 in Lync, Windows 8
Tags:

I have a personal Holy Grail that I have wished Microsoft would address for a long time. As a Lync developer I sometimes have a need to be logged into multiple Lync instances. In the past it wasn’t possible to log your Lync client into two instances at the same time for testing or to just show your presence and communicate on two different companies’ Lync installations. I always had to resort to one client on my laptop and one on my desktop PC. Kind of aggravating having to run multiple machines to achieve multiple log ins.

Well, now with Windows 8 there is a way to achieve that. I installed the Windows Store version of the Lync client on my Windows 8 laptop, I also installed Office 2013 on the lap and as part of the install I got Lync 2013 on the desktop. I noticed that I could connect with both versions running at the same time so I got to thinking…

What if I logged each client into a different Lync installation? Would that work? Could the Windows 8 interface carry on a conversation with Lync running on the desktop on the same machine?

Well the surprising answer is YES! It does work for IM but you can open a voice call between the two for obvious reasons.

Screenshot (1)

Screenshot (3)

Since I am now moving into developing for Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 I decided to give my blog a new look and feel. I kind of like this edgy and bold new look. Kind of makes me feel younger and more hip.

While I am still primarily a Lync and UCMA developer by day my side hobby (at the moment its just a hobby) is developing apps for Win8 and WP8. I am running Win8 on my laptop and it has become my favorite Microsoft OS. I like how well the desktop translated to tablets and to mobile phones. I like it so much that a Surface and a Nokia Lumia 920 are in the near future for me.

I’ll be blogging more Win8 stuff soon covering features, my likes and dislikes as well as source code, getting started how-tos  and developer tools, tips and tricks.

Stay tuned…

Windows 8 Stuff

Posted: January 4, 2013 in Me, Windows 8, Windows Phone
Tags:

I’ve installed Windows 8 on my laptop and so far I have been very impressed. I was of the opinion that the interface was designed or a touch screen device like a phone or a tablet but it has translated very well to a mouse driven device. I am very happy with my upgrade.

I’ve installed Visual Studio 2012 as well as the Windows 8 Phone SDK and I am happily working my way through them and the new VS features. My goal is to spend any free time I have from my job search by teaching myself Win8 development and experimenting with the phone APIs. The goals is to learn how to do the Windows 8 development in C# then tack the HTML5 and JavaScript approach to developing applications.

I always like to try to improve myself and this is my current focus though I am not abandoning my Lync and UCMA roots. Speaking of which, I installed the Lync 2013 client and while it works well you get dropped into the desktop to use it. I wish it would work like a full blown Windows 8 app.

I’ll blog more as I progress.

I am currently looking for employment. I am primarily looking for UCMA development opportunities but I am open to PowerShell and mobile development work also. I can easily supply a resume (you can also read my blog entries here and on GotSpeech.Net) so if you are interested please contact me via my blog or at marshall@gotspeech.net.