Archives
-
Upcoming MSDN Events: ASP.NET (New England Region)
Upcoming MSDN Events can always be found on www.MSDNEvents.com or at www.ManagedCode.com
-
Another .NET developer blog - Thom Robbins [MSFT]
-
A jocular note for Mr Spolsky on 'Getting Your Résumé Read'
'Joel on Software' is a great source for developers - he provides 'meta information' needed in the art of software development. A subscription to his newsletter is a must! His recent posting on 'Getting Your Résumé Read' was an eye-opener - I didn't realize that people from India put a space before the comma - yikes! a lot must have happened after I left the old country many years ago. To quote Joel -
-
Selling Groove - a personal observation
This is a personal observation but does bear credence. Groove is a collaborative platform and for it to be successfully deployed in an organization, the organization must have an already established 'culture'/practice/acceptance of collaboration. Of the numerous prospective clients (mainly development shops) that I have tried "selling" Groove to - the ones who didn't buy are the ones that follow the 'not invented here' syndrome. They build almost all their own libraries, components, etc. - the 'Build vs. Buy' maxim is almost non-existant. This is an interesting correlation - a dichotomy almost between 'collaboration' and the 'not invented here' syndrome. The unfortunate side of 'not invented here' is that it invariably transforms into the 'not invented in my cubicle' syndrome and that may explain the missing 'collaboration'.
-
.NET Reality Check - a matter of 'Pragmatic R&D'
My recent posting (with the convoluted long sentence - thanks Frans :-), needs an update. Michael Earls has some very substantiated arguments about .NET at the present and its future. His posting(s) does express a concern about what's needed today.. I do concur that MS has done a superb job with the Longhorn technology and the weblogs that are devoted to it in disseminating the information. Too much information in such cases, are never enough. 'Longhorn', today is a matter of 'Pragmatic R&D' and I hope to indulge in it (am expecting a new Dell box in my lab soon). 'Pragmatic R&D' is not a production environment but a viewport of what's coming but it may (will) change when it gets here. Having spent a considerable portion of my career in research labs, I know that it's a gamble as well, as the bottom-line is always there to remind us. When advising/suggesting to clients about the future of an operating platform, I would also like to state what's needed in human terms - training issues are the foremost. Quite a few of my clients run their systems for decades - talk about ROI! A Windows Healthcare laptop application, of which I was the project tech lead, was built about 12 years ago and it's still running! Granted that it has undergone numerous iterations (and a change in compilers from BC++ to VC++). So, it pays to do some 'Pragmatic R&D' upfront - laptops and Win3.x have come a long way!
-
10 Great Things to Do with Analysis Models and Artifacts
I should have blogged this awhile ago but better late than never..
-
.NET Reality Check..
A 'must-read' is the column by Jon Udell (InfoWorld) about '.NET Reality Check'. He refers to another posting about 'Longhorn' in the market. This is a good article albeit critical about .NET and its future, unlike articles from other columnists who have become legends in their own minds.
-
We'll have to wait for Carl to speak again..
This winter is getting to us - we'll have to wait for Carl to speak again. Our local .NET Dev Group meeting tomorrow has been cancelled due to the weather. bummer..
-
Sir Bill?
-
Where is your dev shop in this graph?
-
MS Office Desktop Blogger (hypothetical)
I have examined two desktop blogging tools recently (BlogJet and w.bloggar). I can see the next version of MS Office having such a tool in the Office portfolio with the blogging site as an add-on to the Windows Server. This would be similar to SharePoint-WSS add-on to the W2K3 Server. It would fit in well with the Small Business Server - the weblog site can be an internal communications source (news, views, events, etc) and the admin management using the Desktop Blogger. I think all this is beginning to fall into place for the end-user.
-
Testing BlogJet
This is a test via BlogJet.
-
First post from desktop w.bloggar
This is the first post from desktop w.bloggar (v3.03).
-
Indigo shows some color
Yasser Shohoud has posted an article at MSDN about building Indigo's web service apps using SFx & MFx. I think this has rejuvenated my interest in getting a new box for Longhorn.
-
WS-Eventing & its equivalents
Recently MS, BEA & Tibco announced the WS-Eventing specs for web services to communicate events (between the WS nodes). IBM had refrained from this joint venture and announced two specifications which will do the same - WS-Notifications and WS-Resource Framework. The key element here is reliable messaging which should include communicating even in the presence of two or more different messaging protocols.
-
Microsoft's Systems and Services Management strategy
Windows System magazine has a good article describing Microsoft's Systems and Services Management strategy. Particularly interesting is MOM managing web services - this will be crucial in SOA deployment. Worth reading.
-
Interoperability with other (corporate) platforms
In the F500 corporate world, interoperability between MS apps and other platforms will be a “hot” topic. In a recent conversation with a corporate systems architect, he stated that Microsoft's strong drive into large enterprise systems will bring forth interoperability and integration issues. Time to read up on it - Simon Guest's Toolkit and some recent MSDN articles. Choosing between the various platforms (notably IBM, Oracle & Sun) may not be easy.
-
Tech lead and leadership
Roy has a good posting and essay on misjudging development approaches. My thanks to Roy for the posting and "divulging the soul" on the matter. Chalk it up on experience and we all have gone through that before. I wouldn't blame Roy's approach on his 'directory services' project and I personally, do not view it as a technical (WMI, AD, etc) issue but one of LEADERSHIP. Ultimately, it's the tech lead's responsibility to seeing the project done. But tech leads can go astray. In this case, the development was done "behind the back" and that was certainly not the right way and that approach in itself, demoralizes the entire development team. I'd say that's poor leadership on the tech lead's part.
-
Regular Expression quick reference card
Found this quick reference card on regular expressions (for client javascript) from Visibone. Some good useful information.
-
The Death of Denormalization?
Craig Mullins has a provocative article entitled 'The Death of Denormalization'. His argument lies in the fact that RDBMS technology now has better internal performance features, query optimizations, use of MQTs and ASTs, etc. These make the process of (de)normalization of databases almost redundant. While he may have some credence in his argument, I am skeptical - it pushes the design process too close to the system implementation. I have yet to utilize his new view for systems development but will certainly keep it in mind.
-
Regular Expression Mining
-
Carl Franklin to speak about Whidbey at the local .NET developer Group (Farmington, CT)
Our own, Carl Franklin will give a presentation - What's new in Whidbey? - January 27, 2004. 5:30 pm - 6:30 pm at the MS Farmington CT office. More details here...
-
Five free Client Access Licenses for SBS2K3 customers
Following up from my prior posting about the WSS & SBS2K3 Installation update - just found out that MS is offering 5 free Client Access Licenses for Windows Small Business Server 2003 customers. Some details here...
-
What's wrong with this picture?
-
XMLFox - xml and xml schema(XSD) editor
-
Joe Stagner's Managed Code site
Joe is the local .NET guru who haunts the New England developer events. He's a prolific speaker and a .NET junkie! He works for MS as a .NET evangelist.. (dreamy job) and runs a website dedicated to it - ManagedCode. Worth visiting.
-
Happy New Year 2004!