iTWire: Even the most Microsoft-ardent developer will know web hosts favour Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP over Windows, IIS, ASP.NET and SQL Server. Thanks to virtualisation the days of dual booting are over. Here is how to set up a streamlined LAMP development environment on any Windows PC.

It’s on, and I’m here. Microsoft Tech-Ed Australia is running from today until Friday 11th September on the sunny Gold Coast of Australia. An incredible 2000+ attendees are roaming about with HP Mini netbooks. Demonstrations have already begun of Exchange 2010, Office 2010 and Visual Studio 2010.

I’ve been trying to get into Microsoft LINQ and came across this excellent Microsoft Press book, “Programming Microsoft LINQ.”

It covers just what LINQ is and how to use it, beginning with in-memory objects before moving onto relational databases and XML and then covering some advanced topics like parallelisation.

Here’s my full review.

My good friend and Microsoft Developer Evangelist Andrew Coates recently, and kindly, offered some exam vouchers to help people make a positive start to the new year. Happily, I was one of the 15 who got in first.

My big decision now is which exam to take? Anyone have any suggestions? You can check out my Microsoft transcript online, with transcript ID 750702 and password ‘davidmwilliams’

I’m thinking of exam 70-551, upgrade MCAD to MCPD web developer.

iTWire: So, what’s this Azure, then? Let me tell you Microsoft’s vision for the next stage in the evolution of software right from the mouth of none other than Steve Ballmer, live from Sydney today. Here’s what Azure is, what cloud computing is, and how the two shall meet.

Sadly, the Microsoft DevSta competition submissions page suffered some malice from ill-intentioned people.

I wrote about it on iTWire, including screenshots for posterity. Microsoft Australia have now removed the vandalism.

This story made it to the front page of SlashDot.

Microsoft Australia have a programming contest out right now – with (at the time of writing) 173 hours and three minutes remaining. There’s a nice bevy of prizes.

The challenge is to make something modern out of something retro – or even implement something retro using new tech.

My first thought was a modern .NET Commodore 64 emulator – but then I came across Sharp-64 – written two years ago by a fellow Australian. I pondered briefly whether a C64 emulator Vista sidebar gadget would be feasible but I’ve gone off this train of thought now …

Anyone got an idea for me?? Time is ticking down … and like with most great software, the coding likely isn’t the significant part of the challenge, it’s the big idea!

Hi Coders,

The next Coders Group meeting will be:

Date: 6.00pm Wednesday 1st October 2008
Location: Forsythes IT Training Room – 9 Denison Street, Newcastle West
Cost: FREE!

This month the topic will be the Lua programming language … And how to expand the World of Warcraft.

Lua (Portuguese for “Moon”) is a modern lightweight scripting language. In this talk, you will see the syntax and control structures that make Lua work – and then put it together to write add-ons for possibly the most famous Lua implementation – the engine for the World of Warcraft. Using Lua you can enhance your WoW experience, taking advantage of information happening around you in the world that you might otherwise miss. You’ll be pleasantly surprised how similar it is to familiar and more conventional event-driven programming.

By day, David M Williams is the Chief Information Officer for ResCo Services, a national mining support company. By night, he writes for iTWire and is a level 70 warlock.

For those of you who haven’t been before, the Newcastle Coders Group is a great place to learn about the latest technologies in software development. It’s also a great place to meet your peers in the local area. Everyone is welcome, so bring your friends and colleagues.

It should be a great night.  I hope to see you there.

iTWire: Google’s Chrome web browser is upon us, with performance already hitting legendary status. Yet, it is presently available only for use on Microsoft Windows systems? What then for us, the Linux user? Here’s how to begin poking around and see what the future looks like.

iTWire: The very heart of the Linux operating system is the kernel, the piece of software which makes programs run and work with hardware. It’s possibly the largest and most geographical spread open source project in the world. With software projects failing daily how can such a task actually work?