WebSiteSpark is a program geared towards small web developer companies. The goal is to accelerate the speed of web development & help companies  to get websites up and running by providing 3 years of free software, guidance and marketing to build your web properties. 

What’s the catch?  First, you have to be a small upstart company and there is criteria on what defines a small upstart – less than 10 people including owners.  Secondly, since the program is geared towards building web businesses, you need show that you used the software for the purpose of building a website and if you don’t deploy a site within 6 months, there is a $100 withdrawal fee from the program.  Aside from that, that’s it!   I’m surprised more people aren’t taking advantage of it. You can even use the software for up to 2 additional people at your company besides yourself.   

Even better, if you are a hoster or very well connected with web development companies, you can be a provider yourself (as a Network or Hosting Partner) – this makes you the go to source for people wanting to deploy web applications – this is especially useful for small hosting companies to gain a competitive edge. How? As a network partner, you receive marketing support directly from Microsoft & become listed in our catalog of partners as the choice go-to platform for companies looking to build a web presence.

WebSiteSpark is not just for ASP.NET Web Developers

Following up on my previous post about migrating from PHP on Linux to Windows, WebSiteSpark can also help ramp up PHP development companies. Here a few samples from MSDev- our portal for training partners.

WebsiteSpark: Get Web Apps like WordPress and Drupal Running Within Minutes!In this short video we will show you where to find and give an example of how to use the Windows Web Application installers for common apps such as Drupal and Wordpress.

WebsiteSpark: Move an Existing LAMP Site onto WindowsIn this short session we discuss what resources you have available to help you transition existing LAMP sites onto the Windows Web platform.

In this post, we will walk through the checklist of resources to migrate your applications from PHP to Windows. 

Migrating your PHP Applications to Windows

1. Install PHP. Install PHP on Windows
2. Engage in discussions about PHP on IIS in the PHP general Q&A forum
3. Migrate Web Server. Execute the steps to Migrate from Apache to IISand review the How to migrate to Windows guide as well as view the  Linux-Apache-MySQL PHP Migration webcasts
4. Migrate database.Migrate MySQL to SQL Server 2008and review the  SQL Server Driver for PHP Documentation
5. Performance tune. Build high performance PHP on Windows applications with Zend and boost performance with FastCGI on II6and FastCGI on IIS7. Very helpful to walk through the hands on lab for tuning and speeding up your PHP application
6. Download web applications from the web application gallery – this includes the most popular PHP applications. The most popular are DotNetNuke and the photo Gallery

DotNetNuke® Community Edition

DotNetNuke® is the leading open source framework for building websites and web applications on Microsoft ASP.NET. Through an intuitive, menu-driven interface, even non-technical users can use DotNetNuke to easily create powerful websites or extend the functionality and features of existing web applications. More information

Gallery

A slick, intuitive web based photo gallery. Gallery is easy to install, configure and use. Gallery photo management includes automatic thumbnails, resizing, rotation, and more. Authenticated users and privileged albums make this great for communities. More information

In this article, we’ll cover how you can build your own customized 3D tour with no code using Bing Search.  This is a great way to share your local points of interest (like the stunning Burj Al Arab – warm sun bathing photo taken two days ago my frigid friends) with friends and family. This is particularly helpful if you moved halfway across the globe and need to fly friends shortens a 12 hour flight into 12 seconds.  Let’s explore how I created my own Bing collection to fly my NYC friends to Dubai and back.

Build a 3D Tour of your favorite POI (not the kind you eat in Lanai)

• Go to Bing.com – sign in with your live ID (this way you can save all the customization into your account)
• Click on the Maps tab
• Type in : Dubai Marina (or whatever neighborhood you call home)
• Change the view to be Aerial Satellite

Fred lives Underwater (no, not a new band)

• Here you have two options to add a point of interest (POI).
  1. Zoom and pan around until you get to a point of interest. For me, I choose the Burj Al-Arab. OR
  2. If your POI is something fairly well known, it is easier to load the lists create by other users. In the left hand side, click on the link for “Explore user-contributed places” The results will include news, Wiki articles, and other URLs contributed by users. Like our friend Fred, who apparently lives under water. You will see pushpins next to these points and you can adopt them as your own by clicking on the pushpin link.  Once you do that, a small window opens up with more information and metadata about the POI. From there you can click on the Save button to save it to your own personal collection (Again, you need to be signed in first, in order to see this option).
  3. Keep adding POIs until you are satisfied with your list.

Create a custom Tour

• Create a custom itinerary or tour, by adding several POIs to My Places Editor. Each time you save a location, it gets added to your list.
• Click on the My Places button to create new lists and tours by clicking on the “New List” button.
• You can also import and explore other people’s lists. 

Fly first class with Photosynths

• You also have the option to filter the user contributions by toggling the options at the top of the list. You can choose only to see items with photos, 3D buildings, MapCruncher, or Photosynthwhich enables you to combine multiple photos into one first person type view, as you can see by visiting Times Squareor by visiting the observation deck of the tallest building in the world, Burj Khalifa

Create a 3D tour to fly your friends to Dubai

• After you are satisfied with the order of the locations in your list, close the My Places editor and select the Actions drop down button. Now you are ready to fly your friends over by creating a 3D tour. Choose the “Tour & make videos in 3D” link .
• When you play the tour, the globe will spin as your friends fly over to visit.
• When the video plays, the user flies from spot to spot. You can even customize the flying behavior to include panoramic spin around and speed up or slow down the animations.  Hit  the “Go To” Play button when you and change the drop down from Asli’s favorite building to Home in New York to fly from Dubai to New York in 12 seconds.
• You can right click on a pushpin in the map and choose Edit, and then modify the behavior of the 3D animation in the 3D Tour tab. You can change the viewpoint – to be from ground level or above or circle a building clockwise. You can do this for each POI and really create a unique experience for your friends and family.
• When you are ready, you can share your map via link or email.