SDN Event – Richard Campbell – Keynote: The Development Platform Landscape in 2017

Last Friday June 23^rd we managed to pull off our second SDN Event of 2017 and we recorded a couple of our sessions so if you couldn’t make it or had other reasons not to attend you still can watch the session online.

Abstract:
Join Richard Campbell as he takes you on a tour of the broad range of subjects explored while recording more than 1400 episodes of .NET Rocks over the past 10+ years. The development world today is evolving rapidly, but a look at the history of development can help inform the path we’re on and where we’re going. Along the way you’ll hear some great stories from the various .NET Rocks episodes and get some ideas of how you can take your career and your company into the future of technology.

YouTube Link:
https://youtu.be/kbd3ybHX-G0

If you like to know how we recorded the session you can read my other blog post:
How to record your user group presentations in high quality with low budget tooling – Part II

Other Events
Events last week
Goto Amsterdam – June 12-15
https://gotoams.nl/2017

Microsoft Data Insights Summit – June 12-13, 2017, Seattle
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/datainsightssummit

NDC Oslo – June 12-16 2017 – Oslo
http://ndcoslo.com

E3 – June 13-15 2017 – Los Angeles Convention Center
https://www.e3expo.com/show-info/2895/about-e3/

Global Devops Bootcamp – June 17
http://globaldevopsbootcamp.com

Events this week

Office365 Engage – June 19-22 – Haarlem
https://office365engage.com/

Google Cloud Next – June 21 – Kromhouthal – Amsterdam
https://cloudplatformonline.com/Next-Amsterdam-2017.html

Microsoft Azure OpenDev – June 21 – Online
https://azure.microsoft.com/nl-nl/opendev

SDN Event 2 – Zeist NL – June 23, 2017
http://www.sdn.nl

Upcoming events

Digility VR/AR Conference & Expo 2017, Cologne, Germany – July 5-6
http://www.digility.de/

Inspire July 9-13 – Washington D.C.
https://partner.microsoft.com/en-us/inspire/

Ignite 2017 – September 25-29 – Orlando
https://ignite.microsoft.com

SDN Event 3 – Zeist NL – October 6
www.sdn.nl

TechDays October 12-13, 2017 RAI Amsterdam NL
http://www.techdays.nl/

June 21, 2017

How to record your user group presentations in high quality with low budget tooling – Part II

In my previous post about session recording I explained how we recorded straight to Google Hangouts. This time there is a slight change of plans … we replaced Google Hangouts by YouTube Live through OBS Studio. Also we no longer require the presenter to login to Google Hangouts. Instead we now use the Elgato HD60S HDMI Splitter/Game Capture Device to capture the presenters screen so there won’t be any lag caused by Google Hangouts while presenting. Google Hangouts could negatively impact the performance of the presenters’ PC because the video processing can be a heavy impact if the PC or laptop does not have a fast video card inside.

New Recording gear setup with OBS Studio:

By using OBS Studio (or other production/broadcasting/recording software such as vMix that I use in our weekly SDN Cast recordings) we can simultaneously record our session to local disk and as an option broadcasting it to YouTube Live. The recording PC in this case is connected to the YouTube Live stream, the presenter is just sending his desktop images to the beamer over the Elgato HD60S Game Capture device.

My gear list as used so far with the configuration in the picture above:

One recording laptop
OBS Studio
One monitor laptop (optional)
Behringer XENIX QX1002USB
Power Supply
6.35 mm Jack to 3.5 mm headphone adapter
USB Cable
AKG WMS45 Band D Wireless Microphone Set
Power Supply
Wireless Microphone
XLR Cable Male/Female
Logitech 930e HD Web Cam
USB Extension Cable (Optional)
Camera Stand/tripod
Elgato HD60S
USB Hub (Optional, if your laptop does not have enough ports)
Headphones
One presenter laptop to share his desktop

Installing the recording gear:

Put the camera in front of the presenter covering both the projector screen and the presenters desk. Be careful not to put the camera too much into the viewing field of the audience. The optional USB extension cord can help here.

The camera is small, so not really an issue as it seems. This camera will be the ‘overview’ camera setup showing both the presenter walking around, sitting down at his desk as well as the big screen from the beamer.

The wireless microphone is pinned on the presenter for near field voice recording, don’t hurt him by clipping it on his skin. This microphone will record his story telling voice, picked up by the AKG WMS45 wireless receiver set and dropped into the Behringer XENIX QX1002USB.

The Behringer will provide the sound USB input channel for the recording ‘source one’ combined with the video from the camera ‘overview’ output by the Logitech 930.

The recording PC will be logged in as video producer to YouTube Live (optional) and you will be able to switch between sources, big screen and presenter or desktop view using OBS Studio.

An example of a session recording (this recording is in English BTW):

”Fanie Reynders – Rest-ful APIs with ASP.NET Core”
https://youtu.be/rsgwUsfD2-A

A full playlist of all our (Dutch and English ) recorded sessions so far can be found here if you want to see more:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLC5P51a_60YElMJvidAy7GagDJH0Y-UwX

What you see in this example video is that we can switch between the big picture on the overhead screen and jump into detail by showing the desktop from the presenter laptop to get a good readable picture of the slides or even when there is live coding going on.

With OBS Studio you can setup multiple screens consisting of several inputs, images, cameras or videos to create a compelling view. You can even add some sponsor information in the screens. While directing your recording you can switch between the screens that you prepared with all the sources.

So, is all good now, doing it this way with the improved inputs sharing the HDMI signal on the Elgato HD60S?

Well, we lost the issue that the presenter experienced some delays on his PC due to the video processing. No need to log in as presenter, no need to have a Google Account available to do so. It is closer (for the presenter, at least) to the zero-configuration solution.

With the setup above you can broadcast your sessions through YouTube Live and record on your local hard drive to share after the event. If you are afraid to broadcast live and for example think about the risk of getting a lower number of attendees (why going to the event, it is broadcasted live) the session can be just recorded without going into YouTube Live and you can decide to upload the video only after the event is over (this also gives you the option to edit the footage, adding annotations, start or end screens and upload the edited footage for you to share as public video).

I really hope this post will encourage you to try the same thing what we did and get more of the community efforts recorded and to get more of our valuable arranged sessions shared to a larger audience. The information is way too valuable not to share!

If you want to comment on this setup, share improvements, have questions or just want to say something, leave your comments below on this post!

June 11, 2017

SDN Cast 53 – ARM, CShell, WWDC and news week 23

Developments are going fast, according to the rumors from the market that is. There already was the pre-recorded video at Build 2017 about Windows on ARM, this weeks announcement by Qualcomm on full Windows 10 PCs running on its Snapdragon 835 ARM processor with built-in LTE for “Always Connected” devices (https://www.qualcomm.com/news/onq/2017/05/31/windows-10-running-snapdragon-835-mobile-pc-platform-unveiled-computex).

Intel quickly followed with a statement suggesting that certain 3^rd parties might have been using their patents without their consent.

At the same time videos appeared online showing the new Windows interface called CShell. CShell has options to scale the user interface depending on the device the applications are running on. A smaller device will adapt to a mobile like interface where on full scale systems all details will emerge. All devices will get their most optimized view.

Overall it seems that a new Windows mobile devices is rising but not with Windows Mobile but with the full version of Windows that will also be running on full PC ARM devices as mentioned above. Devices have been announced, in the official prerecorded video by Microsoft and also in other videos to be arriving Q4 this year already! In other words, ready for Holiday Season 2017…

Besides speculating on this, we also discussed the news items presented at the Apple Developer Conference WWDC 2017. We are talking about the new devices, upgrades to the iMac Pro, HomePod, AIKit APIs and more. So our Dutch speaking viewers get updated in about an hour on the latest news and event updates.

If you are in the neighborhood also don’t forget that our next SDN Event is close. At June 23^rd we will have our second SDN Event this year with, as always, a great set of sessions and speakers. A slightly changed program this time, we will start with a generic keynote by Richard Campbell. After that the regular sessions start.

You Dutchies can register at our SDN site:
https://www.sdn.nl/EVENTS/23-juni-2017

Where can you find our 53rd episode of our Dutch SDN Cast?

https://youtu.be/97VVbIKgwx0

Did you subscribe our Dutch SDN Cast channel already?

Subscribe your YouTube channel if you don’t want to miss a single broadcast. Usually we will broadcast on Thursday evenings at 8 PM but there can be a change of plans where we need to move to another time or day. So to be sure Subscribe to our channel on YouTube or go to http://www.sdncast.nl to see when the next episode is due.

Other news:

Announcing Availability of SharePoint Framework Extensions Developer Preview
https://dev.office.com/blogs/announcing-availability-of-sharepoint-framework-extensions-developer-preview

Open Sourcing the Microsoft Graph Explorer
https://dev.office.com/blogs/open-sourcing-the-microsoft-graph-explorer

Performance Improvements in .NET Core
https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/dotnet/2017/06/07/performance-improvements-in-net-core/

Android Developer Preview 3
https://developer.android.com/preview/release-notes.html

Android O APIs are final, get your apps ready!
https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2017/06/android-o-apis-are-final-get-your-apps.html

CShell
First Look at CShell on a Windows phone (Exclusive)

Intel seemingly hints of potential patent infringement around x86 emulation on ARM
http://www.zdnet.com/article/intel-seemingly-hints-of-potential-patent-infringement-around-x86-emulation-on-arm/

Important information on the closing of Docs.com
https://support.office.com/en-US/article/Belangrijke-informatie-over-einde-van-service-voor-Docs-com-3b0d4877-1643-457c-9756-8caf28b94da4
https://docs.com

Events

This week’s events

WWDC 2017 – June 5-9, 2017 – San José
https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=02152017a

DevSum 17 – June 8-9, 2017 – Stockholm
http://www.devsum.se/

Next Week events

Goto Amsterdam – June 12-15
https://gotoams.nl/2017

Microsoft Data Insights Summit – June 12-13, 2017 – Seattle
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/datainsightssummit

NDC Oslo – June 12-16, 2017 – Oslo
http://ndcoslo.com

E3 – June 13-15, 2017 – Los Angeles Convention Center
https://www.e3expo.com/show-info/2895/about-e3/

Global Devops Bootcamp June 17
http://globaldevopsbootcamp.com

Upcoming events

Office365 Engage – June 19-22 – Haarlem
https://office365engage.com/

Google Cloud Next – June 21 – Kromhouthal – Amsterdam
https://cloudplatformonline.com/Next-Amsterdam-2017.html

SDN Event 2 – Zeist – June 23, 2017
www.sdn.nl

Inspire July 9-13 – Washington D.C.
https://partner.microsoft.com/en-us/inspire/

Ignite 2017 – September 25-29 – Orlando
https://ignite.microsoft.com

SDN Event 3 – Zeist, NL – October 6, 2017
www.sdn.nl

TechDays – October 12-13, 2017 RAI Amsterdam
http://www.techdays.nl/

As usual we are always looking for presenters for our own events and Meetup’s so if you want to share something about hot technologies or just about something you implemented at work or in an App that could be interesting to our audience let us know so we can schedule you for one or our next SDN events or Dutch .NET Group Meetups.

This off course also goes for if you want to write a great article for us to publish in our SDN Magazines or at our SDN Website. The downside of publishing a magazine article is that there can be some time between writing the article and publishing the magazine. So, if it is time critical sometimes the best option is to publish it on the www.sdn.nl website to get more speedy attention to the article.

As you see, options enough to address your audience with top notch information. You can even, if you like, be our guest in our SDN Cast shows to discuss the projects you are working on or other topics you master. We will instruct you how to connect with us and what it is you need to join the show.

Hopefully we will see you at our weekly web cast, for the schedule go to www.sdncast.nl for next week’s announcement to find out the day and time of our next broadcast or go to www.sdncast.nl/youtube to watch old episodes and videos that we recorded at our events. Don’t forget to subscribe our YouTube channel www.sdncast.nl/subscribe or go directly to YouTube not to miss any of our shows!

June 7, 2017

SharePoint Framework Extensions Developer Preview now available

Today the Office Team announced the availability of the SharePoint Framework Extensions Developer Preview. With this you can build site, list and command extensions.

To start building your own Extension Preview projects you can go and start looking at the Preview documentation. If you don’t already have an Office 365 Developer Tenant you can get one if you go to the Office Developer Program so there is no argument not to start using that.

The preview is obviously meant to serve as a way to collect feedback from the community and while the preview is running you can expect new SharePoint Framework Extension capabilities and changes based on your feedback.

If you want to provide your feedback you can do this by adding issues to the GitHub issues list but on the SharePoint tech community, the SharePoint Developer section on the Microsoft Tech Community site.

To give you an impression of what the SharePoint Framework Extensions Developer Preview brings, here are three:

1. Build your own Custom Banner using the ApplicationCustomizer.

Adding a Custom Banner is now one of your options to build your own banner with exactly the information you want to share on your list page.

2. Create your own Custom Field Rendering using the FieldCustomizer.

In this example you see that the fields of the list are blurred to hide sensitive list information.

3. Adding Command Extensions with CommandSet

With this option you can add your own custom menu actions to be able to trigger your own custom actions.

If you are looking for more examples (extensions examples will be added soon) for what you can do with SharePoint there is a special SharePoint Showcase site for you to look at and to enjoy all the great options and examples.

Now go ahead, and build your own Extensions using the SharePoint Framework Extensions Developer Preview!

June 6, 2017

SDN Cast 52, live from Madrid, news for week 22

In this week’s SDN Cast (week 22) we connected live to Madrid – Spain, where I attended the MVP Community Event. Between sessions and eating at a restaurant in the Real Madrid Stadium I quickly escaped the group for a moment to give you our weekly report and to sit with Marcel Meijer and Fanie Reynders to present you with the latest news and upcoming events. A show with a sunny Spanish touch.

One of the interesting events for this week is the Computex 2017 event where Microsoft not only announced new products but also presented their vision on “Always Connected Devices”.

The “Always Connected” topic wasn’t their first time, Bill Gates mentioned that years earlier, but this time in a way where devices have integrated their SIMs, so called eSIMs. These are provider independent chips/SIMs installed in your machine and enables you to connect to one or more supported mobile providers. There won’t be a vendor lock with this and allows you to switch providers as you like.

With this you will turn all your devices into phone. This means that your small tablet form factor can act like a phone, but also with larger devices you can turn your device in a phone (note: not like Skype is doing using the internet, but using the 4G/LTE services from your mobile provider).

It’s an interesting development and we might see in this what Microsoft has in mind for mobile phones. Up to now we were kept into the dark on any plans or roadmap for Windows Mobile.

Where can you find our 52nd episode of our Dutch SDN Cast?

https://youtu.be/4rqg8pI21pM

Did you subscribe our Dutch SDN Cast channel already?

News from the show:

Reactive Extensions v4 Preview 1

https://github.com/Reactive-Extensions/Rx.NET/releases/tag/v4.0.0-preview1

Announcing the preview of Azure’s Largest Disk sizes
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/announcing-the-preview-of-azure-s-largest-disk-sizes/

Getting started with the Video Indexer API
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/gettingstartedwiththevideoindexerapi/

.NET Framework May 2017 Cumulative Quality Update for Windows 10
https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/dotnet/2017/05/26/net-framework-may-2017-cumulative-quality-update-for-windows-10/

Evolving TFS/Team Services build automation capabilities
https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/bharry/2017/05/30/evolving-tfsteam-services-build-automation-capabilities/

Microsoft highlights ecosystem growth and innovation at Computex 2017 with Windows 10 devices

https://news.microsoft.com/2017/05/31/microsoft-highlights-ecosystem-growth-and-innovation-at-computex-2017-with-windows-10-devices