As you already might know, I’ve found a new hobby in the last few years – I’m currently building a fully functional fixed-based Boeing 737-800 flight simulator. I’ve started this project around January 2006 with a very, very long research phase (around 18 months). During the christmas holidays of 2008 I decided to put this amazing project into reality and started building the main structure of my flight simulator and several hardware interfaces that are working together with Microsoft Flight Simulator X. Here you will see some impressions of the current status. In the next ongoing weblog posts I will dive into the technical details of my flight simulator, and I will show you how things are done and implemented.

Figure 1: The MIP (main instrument panel) of the Boeing 737-800 flight simulator in >>>REAL<<< dimensions.

Figure 2: The pilot’s side of the MIP. The left window frame is the PFD (primary flight display), where the window right window frame next to the PFD is the ND (navigational display).

Figure 3: The auto-break/flaps panel.

Figure 4: The upper part of the landing gear.

Figure 5: The lower part of the landing gear.

Figure 6: The inner workings of the MCP (Mode Control Panel), aka Auto-Pilot. It took me around 3 months to build and program it.

Figure 7: Parts of the MCP from the front.

Stay tuned for further more detailed and technical information

-Klaus

As announced in my session at the SQLBits conference in Manchester, you can download the sample code here. I hope you enjoyed my session and my attractive back

-Klaus

As announced in both of my sessions here at the DevWeek conference in London, you can download the sample code here. But the download files will be online on Sunday, when I'm returning to Vienna

• ADO.NET Enhancements for SQL Server 2005/2008
• Building a distributed enterprise application with the .NET framework 3.5

I hope you have enjoyed my sessions

-Klaus

Well, a very good question: the last months were very stressful for me, and therefore I had to take priorities, and blogging wasn't the number one priority. But things are changing. By now I'm trying to post a lot more than in the past (which is very easy, as you can see from the history of my blog...)

Since february I'm employed as an software architect & consultant at EDS, an HP company in Vienna. I've been now around 6 weeks with EDS, and it's very amazing to seen how such a global player is working. And also the combination with HP will be very nice - just trust me Currently I'm doing a lot of SQL Server related stuff (my main topic, as you might already know), and also some things with .NET related technologies, evangelizing some great internal EDS technologies in Europe.

Here's also my upcoming conference schedule for the next weeks and months, where you can meet me face-2-face:

• DevWeek Conference London, UK (23. - 27. march): I'm doing one session about ADO.NET enhancements for SQL Server 2005/2008 and one session about distributed applications with the .NET framework 3.5
• European PASS Conference Neuss, Germany (23. - 24. april): I'm doing 2 session about SQL Server 2008: GEOGRAPHY data type and T-SQL enhancements
• Solid Quality Summit Vienna (June): I'm doing 4 (!) SQL Server related sessions together with my very good friends at Solid Quality Learning

See you!

-Klaus

A few minutes ago I finished my preparations for the upcoming DevWeek conference by the end of March in London, UK. One topic that I'll be talking about is building a fully distributed .NET application based on the .NET framework 3.5 technologies, WCF, WF, and WPF.

I'll show the following things:

• How to use the "Workflow Services" technology from the .NET framework 3.5
• How to store workflow definitions in a database, so that business analysts can change them according to their (changing) business requirements
• How to write a workflow designer, that can be used by the business analysts to change the workflow definitions that are stored in the database
• How to use the workflow monitor application from the SDK to monitor the current running and closed workflow instances
• How to use the TrackingProfileDesigner application from the SDK to configure tracking profiles for the running workflow instances

All in all: it's just an awesome sample how to use the current .NET framework 3.5 technology stack!

See you there!

-Klaus

Ende Oktober 2008 findet die Microsoft Professional Developers Conference (PDC) in Los Angeles statt.
Die PDC ist DIE Entwicklerkonferenz, auf der Microsoft die Zukunft der Microsoft Entwicklungsplattform zeigt.
In den vergangenen Jahren wurden auf der PDC Technologien und Produkte wie das Microsoft .NET Framework (Jahr 2000), Windows Vista (Jahr 2003), oder das .NET Framework 3.0 (Jahr 2005) vorgestellt, die die Zukunft der Microsoft Entwicklungplattform nachhaltung verändert haben.
Grund genug, um vom 09. - 10. Dezember in Wien die Microsoft Platform Future Days zu veranstalten, um Ihnen die aktuellen Neuerungen und Zukunftsvisionen der diesjährigen Microsoft PDC hautnah näherzubringen.

Zielpublikum: .NET 2.0/3.0/3.5 Programmierer/innen, Software-Architekten/innen
Termin: Dienstag 09.12.2008 - Mittwoch 10.12.2008
Ort: Palais Strudlhof, Pasteurgasse 1, A-1090 Wien, Anfahrtsinformationen
Kosten: € 600,00 (im Betrag ist keine Umsatzsteuer enthalten)
Tagesablauf:

• 09:00 - 13:00 Workshops
• 13:00 - 14.00 Mittagessen
• 14:00 - 17:00 Workshops
• Abends (optional): gemeinsames Abendessen zum Ausklang des Tages

Das ergibt 2 Tage aktuellstes Know-How rund um die Neuerungen der Microsoft Entwicklungsplattform, die in den nächsten Jahren maßgeblichen Einfluss auf die Software-Entwicklung haben werden. Der Preis von € 600,00 beinhaltet:

• Demoversionen
• Begrüßungskaffee/Tee
• Vormittagsjause
• 3-gängiges Mittagessen
• Nachmittagsjause
• Konferenzgetränke
• Gemeinsames Abendessen

Warum teilnehmen?
Die Microsoft PDC ist DIE richtungsweisende Technologiekonferenz von Microsoft, die die Zukunftsvisionen und die aktuellen Neuerungen der Microsoft Entwicklungsplattform der nächsten Jahre zeigt. Die Microsoft Platform Future Days präsentieren Ihnen erstmals in Österreich diese Neuerungen innerhalb von 2 Tagen und zeigen Ihnen neue richtungsweisende Microsoft Technologien, die auf Ihre Softwareentwicklung maßgeblichen Einfluss in den nächsten Jahren haben werden.
Bei den Speakern handelt es sich um international anerkannte Experten, die seit Jahren die Zukunft und die Entwicklung der Microsoft Plattform intensiv verfolgen, und daher in diesen Bereichen bereits umfassendes Know-How aufbauen konnten, und dieses in ausgezeichneter Qualität an die Teilnehmer weitergeben.
Top-Themen:

• Windows 7 - die Nachfolgeversion von Windows Vista!
• Cloud Services
• Microsoft Oslo 
• .NET Framework 4.0 
• Microsoft Live Platform 

Die Themen können sich aus aktuellem Anlass ändern, da diese von der Microsoft PDC abhängig sind!

Weitere Informationen zu den Microsoft Platform Future Days finden Sie unter http://developers-summit.csharp.at

Thanks for attending my sessions at the DevTeach conference in Toronto/Canada this week. As announced in all my sessions, you can download the whole material (Slides & Demos) for my sessions here:

• Message in a bottle: Service Broker from 1 to 100
• Service Broker Enhancements in SQL Server 2008
• Workflow driven Service Broker solutions
• SQL Server 2008 & the GEOGRAPHY data type

-Klaus

Thanks for attending my session about Team Build 2008 at the Team System Conference in Munich/Germany this week. As announced in my session, you can download the slides here. Enjoy it!

-Klaus

Thanks for attending my sessions at the European PASS conference in Neuss/Germany this week. As announced in both of my sessions, you can download the whole material (Slides & Demos) for both sessions here. Enjoy it!

-Klaus