Here are a few things you will need to have on your computer to continue.

1. Windows Virtual PC 2007.  This is required, if you would like to connect the Device Emulator to your local network.  The software can be downloaded from Microsoft website.
2. Microsoft Visual Studio 2008.
3. Microsoft Device Emulator (which comes with VS2008).

With all the above requirements available on your computer, you can follow the steps below to configure your Device Emulator.

1. Start VS 2008 IDE.
2. On the menu, go to Tools >> Device Emulator Manager
   

   Start Device Emulator Manager

3. Right-click on a device you would like to use, and choose Connect option.
   

   Connect to A Mobile Device

4. After the device is connected, right-click on the connected device again, and choose Cradle.
   

   Cradle the Connected Device

5. Go to the device window.  On the menu, choose File >> Configure
   

   Configure Device

6. Go to the Network tab, and select the options as shown in the screen shot below.  And then click OK to close the window.
   

   Choose Network Card

7. In the device window, on the menu, choose File >> Reset >> Soft.  And wait until the device is restarted.
8. Now you need to configure the internet connection in the mobile device.  (The process could be different depending on what device you have picked.)  Normally, you would find the Settings option in the main menu, and then go to the Connections section to choose/define an internet connection.  Here below I use the device I chose as an example.
9. Choose Settings >> Connections >> Advanced >> Select Networks, and then choose My ISP for both Internet and Private Network connections.
   

   Choose Settings

   

   Choose Connections

   

   Choose Advanced Settings

   

   Choose My ISP

10. After confirming all these changes, you can now visit your mobile web application or internet using this Device Emulator.  Task accomplished!
    

    Your Mobile Website

When you receive your access token, you can begin creating projects on the Azure platform with the Azure Developer Portal. You can only create one project with the CTP, but you can have multiple services inside each project (web/worker roles).

After you’ve created your project in the developer portal, you can add services which will be the endpoints you deploy to for Windows Azure. We will add a Windows Azure Service in this example.

To create our Windows Azure application, we need to create a package (cspkg) that contains our application contents and a configuration definition (cscfg) that defines our roles. Microsoft has created Azure tools to assist in generating the package and configuration file. You can download the Azure SDK to create Azure applications using Visual Studio. The Azure SDK allows you to run your own local development fabric before pushing your application into the cloud. Eclipse also has its own Azure Tools if you prefer to develop in the Eclipse environment.

After installation of the Azure Tools, you now have a new project template “Cloud Service” which we’ll use to create our web role.

After clicking “Ok”, you will now have a Cloud Service project and a Web Role project in your solution. We will now remove the Web Role for this exercise, and replace it with an existing ASP.NET application called ASP.NET Chart Controls which Scott Guthrie announced last year. This application did not work on the PDC release of Azure, but Azure now allows web applications to run in Full Trust with some minor tweaking.

We now have our solution complete and have one web role we would like to deploy to the cloud. We must now publish the solution to Azure. We right-click on the Cloud Service project and click “Publish” which opens up the Azure Developer Portal.

After logging in with Windows Live, you want to deploy your application to the Staging Environment before pushing it live. To deploy, you simply select the application package (cspkg) and configuration definition (cscfg) from your “/publish” folder in the cloud service “/bin/Debug” directory.

Clicking on “Deploy” will load the Azure package and service definition to the cloud and create a VM necessary to run the application. The environment takes some time to setup and will show its state as “Initialization” until the VM is entirely ready. You are given a URI based upon a randomly generated GUID to view your application and test it before moving it into production. Having two environments is nice if you also have database changes that need to coincide with your deployment.

Once the application has been verified, you can click the center arrows icon to swap the Staging site into Production. You can see the two environments have now been switched.

Azure does make the deployment process a bit more involved, but there is an managed Azure Deployment API in the works to automate the build and deploy steps you may need in your organization. You can view our sample ASP.NET Chart Controls application running on Azure Services (cloudapp.net). Kudos to Microsoft for allowing full trust applications! We will be watching for more exciting features from the Azure Team.

Microsoft then tried to break this un-cool image by doing one of the most un-cool things they could think of, creating ads that featured Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates.  These ads made no sense and ended up making Microsoft look out of touch with reality. I think the biggest mistake Microsoft made, was telling the world how much they paid to make them.  Apple ironically pointed this out in their own expensive ad.

The next set of ads, in my option, finally got it right. Shortly after Seinfeld they moved onto “I’m a PC” which featured real people proudly claiming that they are PC users. Even though the ads took some criticism, they we very successful changing the image of the PC.  This help set up the next wave of ads.

Microsoft’s latest ad campaign, which features people shopping for computers, finally hit Apple where it hurt. These ads specifically target Apple and the infamous “Apple Tax”. One ad has a potential customer proclaiming “’I'm Just Not Cool Enough to Be a Mac Person”. This really hit Apple below the belt as they already are struggling with a snobbish persona.

Recently Microsoft has branched out into several viral ads. These ads have had mixed results. The most successful ad was “pulled” by Microsoft, because it was deemed as offensive. The ad featured a wife that started vomiting when she saw her husband’s browser history.  (The ad is for the in-private browsing feature of IE 8). These types of ads have finally changed MS advertising image. They have shown that the Software giant is not going to just sit there and take it.

Now I leave you with this little gem from Microsoft Germany. The ad is in Germen, but shows just how far Microsoft is willing to go to be one of the cool kids…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkwh4ZaxHIA