Josh Holmes

Webinar on Oct 20, 2010 with Microsoft/Zend

joshholmes — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 14:19:25 GMT

I’m looking forward to starting this new webinar series that I’m launching in partnership with Zend about running PHP in general and Zend in particular on Microsoft Azure.

My goal, as I’m writing the demos today after posting this, is to go through the Zend Guestbook quick start and then port that to run in Azure and leverage that platform. I’ll be posting the full technical write-up here once I get done.

Read the full post at Josh Holmes - Webinar on Oct 20, 2010 with Microsoft/Zend

Wordpress Podcast | Josh Holmes

joshholmes — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 14:18:14 GMT

I was thrilled and honored to be a guest on the Wordpress Podcast on WebMasterRadio.fm. This podcast is hosted by my friend Joost de Valk and Frederick Townes.

You can read about the podcast, PHP on IIS, PHP on Azure and much more on my blog at Wordpress Podcast…

Toughest Developer Puzzle Ever

joshholmes — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 20:50:59 GMT

For the second year in a row, my friend and colleague Jeff Blankenburg has created what is quickly proving to live up to it’s namesake – the Toughest Developer Puzzle Ever.

Some of the puzzles are technical, some are not but all require that you understand the web, development and technology to solve. Even if you don’t get in on the fantastic prizes that Jeff has lined up, there’s great bragging rights in being able to solve the Toughest Developer Puzzle Ever.

This year, I was honored enough to get to create three of the puzzles myself – let me know what you think of them. I’m not going to tell you which ones I created now and definitely don’t ask me for hints – Jeff has threatened me if I give any of the puzzle away… ;)

All I can say now is “Good luck!”

Microsoft Contributing More to OSS

joshholmes — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 11:57:04 GMT

I’m all excited – Microsoft has signed the Joomla! Contributor Agreement. You can read about that on the official Joomla! blog – Microsoft signs the Joomla! Contributor Agreement.

There’s a couple of fairly momentous things about that statement. Read more at Microsoft Contributing More to OSS | Josh Holmes

Microsoft UX Kit

joshholmes — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 11:56:45 GMT

Have you ever wondered what was possible with Silverlight, WPF or any of Microsoft’s User Experience (UX) technologies? Well, Christian Thilmany has answered that question in the form of the Microsoft UX Kit.

Read more at Microsoft UX Kit | Josh Holmes

Creating a Simple PHP Blog in Azure

joshholmes — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 02:26:07 GMT

In this post, I want to walk through creating a simple Azure application that will show a few pages, leverage Blob storage, Table storage and generally get you started doing PHP on Azure development. In short, we are going to write a very simple PHP Blog engine for Azure.
To be very clear, this is not a pro blog engine and I don’t recommend using it in production. It’s a » read more.

Easy Setup for PHP On Azure Development

joshholmes — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 02:21:26 GMT

I just got back from the JumpIn Camp in fantastic Zurich, Switzerland. I’ll blog about that whole experience shortly. In the meantime, however, I thought I’d get some resources out here that would have been useful last week. Specifically in this post, I thought I’d tackle the Windows Azure 4 Eclipse tooling setup.
There are two major things that we need to do. First is to get the » read more.

PHP/Ruby on Azure World Tour

joshholmes — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 02:31:37 GMT

I’m thrilled and honored to be doing another speaking tour through Europe. I’m getting to visit a number of countries that I haven’t visited before and some old favorites. I’ll be speaking on PHP, Ruby and other non .NET technologies on Azure.

The talk that I’m going to be doing in most places is PHP/Ruby on Azure or Leveraging Azure with Non-Microsoft Languages. For the full abstract and the schedule for when I’ll be speaking where, please read my post at PHP/Ruby on Azure World Tour

Hello World Azure in PHP

joshholmes — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 03:20:47 GMT

Building on the Windows Azure Command Line Tools blog post, I thought we could kick it up a notch and get PHP running in Azure leveraging the command line tools. The primary thing that we need to do is to copy the PHP bits up with the rest of your deployment and configure the FastCGI handler to know where the PHP interpreter can be found.

To see all the steps required, read my post at Hello World Azure in PHP.

Getting MySql Running on Azure

joshholmes — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 04:33:53 GMT

There are a few applications that I’m playing with in Windows Azure that are reliant on MySql for various reason. For example, I’m working with a group that is doing Joomla development and it’s completely dependent on MySql. Mostly this is due to using MySql native drivers rather than using a database independent layer such as ADO.NET in .NET or PDO in PHP or leveraging database specific features that are only found in MySql. Regardless of the reason, for me to run these applications in Windows Azure, I have to get MySql running in Azure. I found that it wasn’t as hard as I initially thought it would be and it’s a technique that I can reuse for a lot of binary executables.

I’ve got some strong thoughts on whether or not this is a good idea but to find out more, check out my post at Getting MySql Running on Azure

Windows Azure Command Line Tools

joshholmes — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 22:41:36 GMT

There are times that you just need to leverage the raw power that you can get from the command line. For example, if you are trying to script something or if you are on a machine that is not all tooled up with Visual Studio, Eclipse and the like and, believe it or not, there are times that it’s just a lot easier to get stuff done without an IDE in the way. Great news is that we’ve got a couple in the Windows Azure SDK called CSPack and CSRun that work wonders.

To that end, I created a little tutorial on using the command line tools to create a very simple Azure package and deploying it up to the development fabric. To see the full tutorial at Windows Azure Command Line Tools

When to use what Microsoft Client Technology

joshholmes — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 18:08:43 GMT

I was asked earlier when to use what Microsoft client Technology. I thought about just sending a link to Michael Schroeder’s post but decided I should put in my own thoughts on the matter first.

For my thoughts on the subject – check out my post at When to use what Microsoft Client Technology.

Taking The Polar Plunge Again

joshholmes — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 15:24:45 GMT

Last year I did a Polar Plunge to raise money for the Special Olympics – Read about it at Taking The Polar Plunge.

I’m doing it again this year and have much loftier goals this year. Last year I raised $725.00 and this year I want to raise $1000.00 and inspire others to do the same. At the time of this writing, I’ve raised $500 personally and have inspired 2 others to do the dive with me.

To find out WHY I’m doing this and HOW you can help – check out my post at Josh Holmes - Taking The Polar Plunge Again

Review of Ext JS 3.0 Cookbook

joshholmes — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 21:24:42 GMT

For full disclosure, Packt Publishing sent me a review copy of this book. They did not ask for a positive review, just a review.

This is the first book by Jorge Ramon that I’ve read. This book is exactly what the title says that it is, a Cookbook. It’s got 109 solutions to problems solved by Ext JS 3.0. I was expecting, like a lot of other books to get a fill of all of the philosophy behind what they are trying to promote but that wasn’t the case. This book just in with no nonsense and gets right to the code.

More on my blog at Review of Ext JS 3.0 Cookbook

Updating the Simple Silverlight Countdown Blog badge

joshholmes — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 19:49:10 GMT

When I was preparing for RIAPalooza, I created and blogged about Creating a Simple Silverlight Countdown Blog badge.

It was great but I wanted to updated it for the next event and realized that recompiling it was not really a user friendly option. The answer is that I updated the widget to have a level of parameterization so that I could easily update it without having to recode everything.

My write up and source code are at - Updating the Simple Silverlight Countdown Blog badge

Above the Fold and how It Really Should be Used

joshholmes — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 21:30:54 GMT

I’ve come to realize that many web designers don’t understand what “Above the Fold” and how it really should be used. Above the Fold is an old print newspaper layout term for what’s on the top part of the page, the part that is displayed in the window at the newspaper stand. In web design, the term is used for the bits that the user can see without having to scroll

Read all about it on my blog at - Above the Fold and how It Really Should be Used

Announcing the WebsiteSpark Program

joshholmes — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 20:34:38 GMT

Building on the success of the DreamSpark and BizSpark program that we launched about 11 months ago Microsoft is now launching the WebsiteSpark program.

WebsiteSpark is designed for small web consultancies ranging in size from 1 to 10 people. With WebsiteSpark, you get a package of software specifically selected for a web consultancy to serve their customers better.

For a lot more details, read my full blog post at Announcing the WebsiteSpark Program.

Creating a Simple Silverlight Countdown Blog badge

joshholmes — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 06:45:05 GMT

I’m going to be speaking at RIAPalooza in about two weeks, well more specifically at the time of this writing it’s 10 days, 12 hours, 48 minutes and 45 seconds. :)

I’m going to be tag teaming with Mike Labriola again talking about “10 questions about RIA you haven’t had the courage to ask”. We’ve got a short list of questions but are hoping to get some questions from the crowd as well. If you happen to have any questions, feel free to shoot them to me in the comments section on this post.

Anyways, we were discussing different ways to get the word out about RIAPalooza and someone mentioned that we didn’t have have a blog badge so I decided to create one in Silverlight. In this post, I explain how I built the blog badge and share the code. Full details on my blog at Creating a Simple Silverlight Countdown Blog badge

Josh Holmes - Antidotal info on JavaScript Library Ext JS

joshholmes — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 01:50:44 GMT

I’m in conversation with a group that’s using Ext JS for their RIA. As I haven’t used it, I thought I’d go ask at the international water fountain that is twitter about it.

Anyone using Ext JS? Thoughts compared to jQuery or Prototype/Scriptaculous?about 3 hours ago from TweetDeck

Read the responses I got back from a number of industry leader and JavaScript experts at Antidotal info on JavaScript Library Ext JS

Kalamazoo X conference

joshholmes — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 17:51:53 GMT

On the heels of the announcement by Michael Eaton, I thought I should post about how excited I am about the upcoming Kalamazoo X Conference…

The Kalamazoo X conference, while being put on by the technical community, is a very different sort of conference. You’re not going to hear “technical” talks. All of talks pertain to technical folk but it’s a step back from the nuts and bolts that we usually deal with day in and day out and focusing on the topics that are really important.

There’s an amazing line up of speakers and content. I blogged about a lot of these speakers on my blog at Kalamazoo X conference.

Interesting Web Development Related Resources

joshholmes — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 02:21:36 GMT

Like so many thing that we do in our daily development, there’s a high probability that someone has already solved the problem if you know where to look. This is just a collection of resources that I’ve found useful over time. Honestly, I’m posting these here because I need them in one place so that I can find them easily…

Read about all of these resources on my blog at Interesting Web Development Related Resources

Measuring ROI – Moving from Cost Center To Strategic Partner

joshholmes — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 00:19:54 GMT

I ran across this article on ZDNet (Wanted: ROI for internal app development) that really worried me. My friends at PreEmptive Solutions ran a survey across a wide number of developers that included people from 21 different industry segments in 33 countries asking about how the company measure the ROI of an application that they are building. The terrifying part is that the survey found that 58% of companies don't bother measuring ROI on their internal applications and the majority of the ones that do measure don't do so in a consistent and proven way.

For the full article – see my blog post at Measuring ROI – Moving from Cost Center To Strategic Partner

Three Essential Expression Blend Add-ins

joshholmes — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 17:48:24 GMT

Expression Blend, believe or not, has an add-in model. It’s highly unsupported but it exists. The unsupported nature of it means that you have to do a little Red Green style patching to get them to run in the first place and if they cause instability, don’t call Microsoft support. However, there are a couple of really cool ones that are out there.

To read all about these add-ins and how to get them running in Blend regardless of where you launch it from – check out my post at Three Essential Expression Blend Add-ins

Polar Plunging for the Special Olympics

joshholmes — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 06:14:13 GMT

I’m going to be polar plunging to raise money for the Special Olympics Michigan this coming weekend in Belleville.

This is a charity that is special to me because of my youngest daughter, Maura, who has a lot of challenges of her own. One day, my hope is to see her compete in the Special Olympics.

To find out how you can help – check out my post at Polar Plunging for the Special Olympics

UI Design for Developers Series, by Total Training

joshholmes — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 11:47:11 GMT

I’m at an internal conference at Microsoft this week and one of the sessions that I attended was called Practical Design tips and tricks for Developers. It was a set of hands on labs that were created out of the Expression team. It was really slick and I learned a whole lot of new techniques and am feeling a whole lot more confident in my Expression Blend abilities. The really slick part is that you get to work through those same labs if you are interested because they have been posted on Arturo’s blog.

For more details check out my post at UI Design for Developers Series, by Total Training.