//build 2013 – Day 2 Keynote

Following the //build day 1 keynote, there was also a keynote on the second day of the //build conference 2013.  In case you missed it, all session recordings will be available at http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Build/2013.

The Day 2 Keynote recording is at http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Build/2013/1-002.  The keynote was primarily Windows Azure, web, and Visual Studio.  

Visual Studio and Web

Scott Hanselman showcased some of the exciting improvements in the web space. 

• There is now only one ASP.NET project template in File—>New, and you can set various options in a configuration wizard after selecting it. 
• You can also set multiple default browsers, and Visual Studio will launch all of these browsers when you run. 
• SignalR (under the covers) allows refresh of websites while running in Visual Studio
• Map mode inside of scroll bar in Visual Studio, with peek - easy to navigate through your code
• Visual Studio code autogeneration: button.btn-trivia*4 expands to 4 button classes
• Nice flip transformation, and code shows the different vendor transforms
• Live streaming application logs
• geekquiz.net demo
• QRCode demo

Windows Azure

There were a *ton* of Windows Azure announcements made at TechEd (prior to //build); for a summary of these, see Brian Prince’s blog posts: "Stop the presses! Stopped VMs are no longer charged, MSDN benefits improved, and more!" and "But wait! That’s not all! More Azure Awesomeness!" Some of the highlights include:

• Windows Azure now uses per-minute billing, rather than per-hour, which will save users money (so they aren’t being charged for unused portions of an hour). 
• Windows Azure won't charge for stopped virtual machines that are still deployed. 
• Windows Azure free trials and MSDN subscribers receive free Azure time as credits which can be used however they want, rather than a certain number of compute hours, database space, etc. 

At //build, they also announced that there will be NO CREDIT CARD REQUIRED for MSDN members to use their Windows Azure time - yeah!

There are over 130,000 Windows Azure web sites. 

Windows Azure Announcements – these were sprinkled throughout the keynote, but I’ve gathered them all in one place:

• General availability of Windows Azure Web Sites (we're not in preview anymore, baby!) 
• Visual Studio 2013 and .NET 4.5.1 previews available
• General availability of Windows Azure Mobile Services
• Windows Azure Autoscale Preview - you can try today
• Coming soon: Preview of Windows Azure SaaS Identity Management
• Preview of Windows Azure BizTalk Services - you can start using today!

Windows Azure Mobile Services

Josh Twist discussed what’s new with Mobile Services. 

• New option in Windows Azure Mobile Services: create new free 20MB SQL database (wow - don’t mind if I do!) 
• Windows Azure Mobile Services: "Set up source control" option creates a github repository for your source and scheduled jobs
• TalkTalkBusiness app demo shows using a single line of code to write to table asynchronously
• In Visual Studio, you can right-click and choose “Add Push Notification” – invokes wizard to set up push for you

Windows Azure in the Enterprise

Scott Guthrie demoed scaling and integrating Windows Azure with an enterprise environment.  He showed autoscaling, Active Directory integration, and BizTalk integration.  He also blogged about these key announcements here. 

• In Windows Azure, you can now select a new autoscale option, which allows you to set configuration options and then it will automatically scale web sites, cloud services, and virtual machines up/down within your parameters. 
• There is also new email alerting/notification support for all compute services (web sites, mobile services, cloud services, and virtual machines). 

• Easily integrate your app with Azure Active Directory and support for federation

• BaseCamp, Box, DropBox, Google Apps & more can now authenticate using your corporate credentials with Windows Azure Active Directory

• End user experience: they can go to Box etc. directly and sign in using corporate creds - users can click on apps to sign in

• Windows Azure Active Directory opportunity: 3.2 million businesses have already synced to cloud and 68 million active users

• Amazon doesn’t have AD support.  Flip a switch.  Really easy to create an Azure app and log in with your corporate identity (AD)
• Aaron Levie – co-founder and CEO of Box – came onstage; he is very excited to be using Windows Azure Active Directory. 
• BizTalk - Tailspin Travel sample app
• You can create a new BizTalk service through Windows Azure portal.  New BizTalk service template available in Visual Studio too.

Office 365

Jay Schmelzer showed:

• New Visual Studio template for Office 365 apps

• Add new relationship between Office 365 list and SQL Server database

• Nice screen templates

• Can run app from inside email

• //build attendees get one-year subscription to Office 365

DPE Demos

Steve “Guggs” Guggenheimer and John Shewchuk demoed a number of cool things.  Guggs kicked off with a strong statement: “Our goal is that if you do Windows development, we make it super easy to do any Windows dev (on web, tablet, phone, XBOX, etc.).” 

• @StevenGuggs and @JohnShew demo the new F12 debugging tools in Internet Explorer.
• Web GL support and new F12 tools in Internet Explorer
• Turning web app into a native app for the Windows Store: "Performance is one of the tricky bits" – @JohnShew
• Khan Academy created great Windows Store app!
• Ooohs when people saw "xbox.js"
• All build attendees get Adobe Creative Cloud for 1 year free
• Wow - crazy easy to wire up Bing knowledge info - add script reference and set class="bing".  See http://www.bing.com/dev for more info! 
• Great FourSquare app is coming to Windows first!
• Voxer, Xfinity, MLBam , MarketWatch, Epicurious, Mint, Rhapsody, and more coming to Windows Phone
• 60-day Windows Phone developer registration period - register for only $19
• Cool demo using augmented reality - spaceship superimposed on video of audience
• Unity demo where gorgeous game with cloud backend is synced across Windows 8 and Windows Phone
• Acciona WPF app demo on perceptive pixel screen
• Visual Studio Intellisense support for data bindings
• Windows Embedded has lots of opportunity
• Lots of new Windows Store apps announced during today's keynote.