Most of my attention this week was occupied with following Mix 2010. So, it shouldn’t be much surprise that a lot of these bullets stem from that.

• BIDS Integration Story in R2 – The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
  “There was a huge discussion thread about the BIDS-Visual Studio integration story in the SQL Server 2008 timeframe where customers complained that BIDS got married with Visual Studio. This required switching both BI and code projects at the same if you want to have a solution with both project types. What has changed in R2?” – [Prologika]
• Programming Windows Phone 7 Series (DRAFT Preview)
  “A reboot is what Microsoft has initiated with its new approach to the mobile phone market. On February 15, 2010, at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer unveiled the Microsoft Windows Phone 7 Series and promised a product introduction in time for year-end holiday shopping. With its clean look, striking fonts, and new organizational paradigms, Windows Phone 7 Series not only represents a break with the Windows Mobile past but also differentiates itself from other smartphones currently in the market.” – [Microsoft Press]
• Windows Phone 7 Series hardware specifications revealed!
  “Microsoft today at Mix officially revealed the hardware specifications of Windows Phone 7 Series. So, now all the manufacturers have to follow these minimum set of specifications for every Windows Phone 7 Series device.” – [Microsoft Feed]
• Silverlight for Windows Phone
  “Silverlight for Windows Phone supports core Silverlight capabilities in managed .NET code with XAML…” – [Silverlight.net]
• The Right MIX
  “Today at MIX ’10 we’re looking under the hood of Windows Phone 7 Series, showing people what this phone can do and giving designers and developers the tools and information they need to expand their horizons.” – [Windows Phone Dev Blog]
• Introducing Expression Blend for Windows Phone
  “Windows Phone is an amazing platform to use and to design applications for. We are very proud to make a preview version of authoring for Windows Phone available with Expression Blend 4.” – [electric beach]
• Developing for Windows Phone 7 Series
  “Some time back the team and I talked about our commitment to the Silverlight and XNA platforms on Windows Phone 7 Series as the primary developer platforms.” – [artificial ignorance]
• ORAYLIS BI.Quality
  “ORAYLIS BI.Quality is a testing suite for BI solutions makes it easier to develop in an agile environment. The suite is based on NUnit and supports quite a lot of different testing methods.” – [CodePlex]

Ok, that was very phone heavy. What can I say? I am excited about the new platform. There are several videos posted on the official Mix site for many of the other keynotes and sessions. I recommend that you go take a look.