My latest screencast is up on the Endpoint.tv show on Channel 9.  In this screencast I cover the basic steps to host workflows in your applications.  I cover the basic hosting steps in a console application, then jump in and run a workflow in an ASP.NET application. 

Screencasts: Running Workflows in your NET Applications

Previous screencasts:

• Your first state machine workflow
• Your first sequential workflow

RSS feed of all screencasts in the series

In the latest screencast in the ongoing series, I cover the basics of creating a state machine workflow. I show you the various activities to use, how to transition between states and handle events including time based events. 

Screencast: Creating Your First State Machine Workflow

Previous screencasts in the series:

• Creating your first sequential workflow

RSS feed for all screencast posts

As Aaron pointed out a while back, Pluralsight has joined up with the WCF / WF folks at Microsoft to create a series of screencasts to give developers an introduction to these technologies.  My first contribution to this effort is all about creating a your first sequential workflow.  The screencasts shows the basics of creating the workflow, adding activities from the framework and custom activities. 

RSS feed for all WF screencasts

I just found out about a few new resources that Microsoft has put together to help developers locate relevant information for developing applications using WF and WCF. This includes some of the screencasts that Aaron and I have been doing on those technologies.  It is nice to have this information in one place and provides a great jumping off point for people wanting to learn about these great technologies. 

Endpoint.tv (the home of our screencasts and other podcasts) -  http://channel9.msdn.com/shows/Endpoint/

WF on the MSDN Social Server

• Screencasts - http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/content/en-us/msft/netframework/wf/screencasts 
• Webcasts - http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/content/en-us/msft/netframework/wf/webcasts
• Code samples (labs, applications) - http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/content/en-us/msft/netframework/wf/Codesamples

WCF on the MSDN Social Server -

• Screencasts - http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/content/en-us/msft/netframework/wcf/screencasts 
• Code samples (labs, applications) - http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/content/en-us/msft/netframework/wcf/Codesamples

In addition, we are Pluralsight attempt to keep our resource pages for this stuff up to date with articles books etc. on our Wiki.  The links to those

Pluralsight's WCF wiki - http://pluralsight.com/wiki/default.aspx/Aaron/WindowsCommunicationFoundationWiki.html

Pluralsight's WF wiki - http://www.pluralsight.com/wiki/default.aspx/Workflow/HomePage.html

I had a great time this week presenting two sessions at the Minnesota Developers Conference. For those of you who attended, I've posted the materials from my talk on LINQ as well as the materials for the ADO.NET Data Services talk.  I hope you enjoyed the show as much as I did!  You can get the slides and / or the demo code. 

I'm excited to be teaching the first BizTalk double feature class coming up October in Irvine.  Now I know what you are thinking: "of course you are happy to get out of Minnesota and go to sunny California", but I actually like fall in MN. No , this class is going to be cool because it allows me to cover all of BizTalk Server 2006 R2.  A normal class just doesn't give me the time to cover the core BizTalk messaging engine, orchestration, rules, etc. AND RFID, EDI, and WCF adapters.  So having the double feature is great because students new to BizTalk development will get the whole package in one week.  So if you want to learn BizTalk, come join me in CA for a very full week of BizTalk content.

Since the announcement of "Oslo" and the excitement around Windows WF and WCF, many customers have been concerned about their investment in BizTalk Server or questioning whether it is a wise investment today.  Microsoft just published their roadmap for BizTalk Server including some important information about how the current and future releases will integrate with the "Oslo" modeling platform.  In addition, the next release of BizTalk Server, still promised in the first half of '09, has been renamed BizTalk Server 2009 (formerly BizTalk Server 2006 R3) because of the significant improvements. 

The good news is that Microsoft has clearly stated their intent on continued investment into this product over the coming years and has some clear ideas about the types of improvements you can expect to see in future versions.

I'm most excited about platform support in the 2009 release right now as I'd like to be running only visual studio 2008 on my machines and I LOVE Windows Server 2008 so I'd like to get all my test machines upgraded to the new OS.  I'm interested to take a look at the new UDDI services and see how the directory support has been improved and can be used in a BizTalk solution as well.  The idea of a directory for services is a powerful one and not many companies realize the value of them for the simplest thing like dynamic addressing of endpoints.  All of your client applications can be built to use just a single address for the registry and lookup the endpoint information for the service.