GUIPundits-- Vision beyond Horizons

Pro WCF 4 - My latest book published

2011-04-05T09:28:00.000+05:30

What does this book contain

The release of .NET 4.0 brought a wide range of new functionality to WCF. Developers and Architects with experience using WCF 3.5 or earlier who want to be able to apply this new functionality to their application will benefit greatly from the discussions and code samples in this book. This book is also a great resource for application developers and architects new to SOA or just new to the core concepts of WCF.

For more info, you can visit on APress site with (http://apress.com/book/view/9781430233688) , or books selling sites like Amazon at (http://www.amazon.com/Pro-WCF-Practical-Microsoft-Implementation/dp/1430233680)

Silverlight 5 Announced

2010-12-03T00:24:00.000+05:30

Last week, I blogged and mentioned about very nice article of Brad Becker talking about future of Silverlight. The article was talking about what Silverlight will be doing in future. The article can be downloaded by clicking Here. Today, Scott Guthrie announced Silverlight 5 in Silverlight firestarter event. All the information mentioned in Brad's article is been mentioned as a part of Silverlight 5. More information is mentioned in Scott's blog by clicking here. The features of Silverlight 5 are really impressive.

Contest for Sharepoint Journey

2010-12-02T00:24:00.000+05:30

Sharepoint can be used for variety of reasons.. Be it for a workflow, collaboration, DMS or now even for social media integration. Microsoft team would like to know how you or your organization got started with Sharepoint and how Sharepoint applications helps in driving business values. In order to achieve this, Microsoft team has set up a contest to submit a video that talks about it. If you are intrested, click Here to know more about it.

Future of Silverlight after HTML 5

2010-11-29T21:18:00.001+05:30

HTML 5 offers a great support of what Silverlight have been doing since few years. There has been a lot of questions around What will be future of silverlight after HTML 5 comes in full swing. I found a very nice article of Brad Becker talking about future of Silverlight. It can be seen by clicking here.

If you have any more questions, I would reckonned to attend the conference (online) of Scott Guthrie by clicking here

LinkedIn Group for Windows Communication Foundation

2010-09-28T00:33:00.000+05:30

LinkedIn is the one of the best Professional site and strengthens and extends your existing network of trusted contacts. There are lot of technical groups and I personally follow quite a number of them. However, there was no good group for Windows Communication foundation and other connected systems. I created a group for windows communication foundation and can be joined at
http://www.linkedin.com/groups?about=&gid=3460246&trk=anet_ug_grppro
(wish I could have friendly urls for linkedIn groups)

What this group is all about ?

Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) is Microsoft’s unified framework for building reliable,
secure, transacted, and interoperable distributed applications. WCF represents a new step
in distributed programming for developers using the .NET Framework.This group is for all those professionals interested in delivering the next generation of distributed application using Microsoft Windows Communication Foundation

Join me in LinkedIn at http://in.linkedin.com/in/nishithpathak

My upcoming book titled "Pro WCF 4.0"

2010-09-08T20:09:00.004+05:30

I have been authoring since few months on a book on WCF for APress titled "Pro WCF 4.0". The release of .NET 4.0 brought a wide range of new functionality to WCF. Developers and Architects with experience using WCF 3.5 or earlier who want to be able to apply this new functionality to their application will benefit greatly from the discussions and code samples in this book. This book is also a great resource for application developers and architects new to SOA or just new to the core concepts of WCF. This book is expected to release by later this year. I will be sharing some more snippets about the book in coming days. It has come in APress site for initial promos by clicking here

Sharepoint 2010 installation hotfix on Win server 2008

2010-08-12T11:59:00.005+05:30

If you happen to install Sharepoint 2010 on Window Server 2008(without SP2), you may encounter the below problem while accessing sharepoint sites."Request is not available in this context "

Problem

Server Error in '/' Application.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Request is not available in this context
Description: An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of the current web request. Please review the stack trace for more information about the error and where it originated in the code.
Exception Details: System.Web.HttpException: Request is not available in this context

Solutions

This is been a known issue since while and Microsoft have acknowledge and rectified it in Windows Server 2008(SP2). if you are using SP1 of Windows Server 2008, I would suggest you to install SP2 or download the hotfix for this solution by clicking on here. Basically, .NET CLR does not understand the new optimization mechanisma and hence after installing this hotfix, one need to also set set the optimizeCompilations property of the tag in your web.config file to true. More information about it is also mentioned in Microsoft support site at here

Case Study on Bengaluru Airport

2010-07-19T12:34:00.002+05:30

Bangalore International Airport Limited (BIAL) used Windows 7 as to enhance IT Management, security and optimised user experience. There is a 4 page case study that Microsoft has uploaded. Click here to know more details about case study

Crystal Reports in VS2010- Where is it ?

2010-04-18T06:59:00.002+05:30

Crystal Reports has been integral part of Visual Studio since 1993. I believe the first time, Microsoft introduces Crystal reports with Visual Studio was with VB 2. Now, with VS2010, Crystal Reports are not integral part of VS 2010 any more.

Well, Not to worry.. Crystal Reports will be separately available as download from Sap. Yesterday, beta version is launched and can be downloaded by clicking here. The good part and as I read the article from Sap Networks here is that Crystal reports will always be available as a free download. The actual product is expetced on Q3 2010.

Silverlight 4 release on Feb 13

2010-04-16T01:43:00.004+05:30

Remember Feb 13, 2007... Silverlight went public for the first time and yeah, here post 3 yrs later at Feb 13,2010, Silverlight 4 got released... This seems to be a intresting fact isn't it .. :) .. There are lots and lots of capabilities coming on Silverlight 4 . The RIAs support seems to be increasing in Silverlight on their every release.. So if you would like to know what's new in Silverlight 4, click here
Silverlight 4 application requires VS 2010 as an IDE. I would be blogging more on Sharepoint 2010 , VS 2010, Silverlight 4 and few more upcoming Tech.. in coming day and will talk about specific features of each of them..

WCF error "No end point listening at net.pipe://server name:port/service name that could accept the message

2009-09-15T14:38:00.004+05:30

Often, While having client and server communication via WCF, one of the typical error that is received is no endpoint is listening. I am blogging the error and resolution for the benefits of all blog readers

Error : There was no endpoint listening at net.pipe://servername:portnumber/ that could accept the message.This is often caused by an incorrect address or SOAP action. See InnerException, if present, for more details.
Resolution:
If you get above error, ensure to follow the below steps
Step 1. Ensure you are pinging the server only if it is started. Normally, this is a typical issue while accessing the service, client pings the server even if it is not started.
Step 2. Ensure that config file in both client and server does not have different address.
Step 3. netpipe/named pipe only works if client and server resides in same machine.Use netTcp binding incase they are not in same machine or if there is any chances in future that both of them does not resides in same machine.

Also, ensure that your IP is been correctly accesed via the client. Normally, this does not happen if you are using load Balancing techniques provider the hardware components. If still the problems does not solve, email me :)

Review Sharepoint Prep kits for UCertify

2009-09-15T10:32:00.006+05:30

I have been asked to review Prep kits for 70-630 exam titled Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, Configuring (70-630). Though I have not got a chance to review each questions but I did found that the concepts related to 70-630 are clearly outlined and thoroughly covered.

There are few small things that has been take care of in this prep kits. For e.g. Pause button which provide a reader to take a break while preparing for the exams.This is very nice and extremely useful. The other noticeable things that I like are adding Tags to each questions, providing review etc to name a few. Also like other prep kits, they did explain the reasons for correct as well as incorrect answers.Few things that I really liked in this Prepkits is its GUI and study notes section.

SharePoint 2010 is on the way. If you are a SharePoint geek, I would still reckoned to get through this exam titled “70-630 – TS: Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007” since still the basics are same. Being my blog reader, you are also entitled to a 10% discount for this prep kit. The discount code is "UCPREP".

MOSS Service Pack 2 Released

2009-05-01T04:16:00.002+05:30

Microsoft have released Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) Service Pack 2. This can be download from here. This service pack include all the unreleased fixes, security updates etx. It is strongly recommend to go through the link Service Pack 2 Improvements to know about the improvements in SP2

Free ASP.NET MVC Book

2009-04-25T12:54:00.002+05:30

ASP.NET MVC framework brings a lots of easiness for creating MVC applications in ASP.NET. There are already lots of tutorials, documentation for new ASP.NET MVC Framework. If you need the sum of all , do go through the upcoming book called ASP.NET MVC 1.0 of Wrox publication. Scott Guthrie has written one of the chapter and is also available for free download. Click here to download the first chapter written by scott Guthrie

Microsoft Software + Services: The Greater Sum :)

2009-04-20T10:33:00.001+05:30

Tech Ed 2009

2009-04-19T01:15:00.003+05:30

This year, MS Tech Ed 2009 is happening at Hyderabad from May 13th-15th‏.
What's New this time in Tech Ed , 2009 ?

28 Technical tracks
Technical Learning Center (TLC) : With more than 100 Demo Stations, 24 Instructor-led Hands-on-Lab sessions, 12 Technology Tents (hosted by Microsoft Product Development Teams), product-specific Ask-the-Expert rooms
Microsoft Certification for free at Tech ED : One of the unique opportunity of its own
Speakers : Chance to hear from 78 eminient speakers that includes Steve Balmer, CEO of Microsoft.

How to view Tech Ed online
Click here to view Tech Ed Online

Where to Register ?
Go and get register for Microsoft TechEd India 2009 at www.msteched.in now

Virtual Techdays in back

2008-11-14T09:17:00.000+05:30

Virtual techDays is back again. it will be on 24-26 November 2008.
for more information and registration, go on http://www.virtualtechdays.com/

WCF REST Starter Kit Now Available

2008-11-12T02:14:00.000+05:30

if you have seen noticed about whats new in .NET 4.0 for WCF. One of the things that have been brought into the attention is the support for creating RESTful Services. So does that mean that in order to create RESTful services via WCF, one need to wait for .NET 4.0. Well.. Not really.. if you are working on .NET 3.5 SP 1, then you got a WCF REST Starter Kit. It is available for download on CodePlex. This kit simplifies the development of REST services by adding new features and guidance tightly integrated with ASP.NET and the existing WCF release in .NET 3.5 SP1. Click here for Learning Resouce on WCF REST Starter Kit

Ramp up- a free, online, community-based program

2008-11-11T04:41:00.001+05:30

Recently i have got a chance to got a visit a wonderful site called Ramp Up program (http://www.myrampup.com/) . Ramp Up is a free, online, community-based program that can help users save time in learning Microsoft technology. The easy-to-access content (provided by subject-matter gurus) is specifically tailored to the Ramp Up program, and offered in a variety of forms (whitepaper, v-lab, codecast and slidecast). There are lot of tracks in it SharePoint track, along with the other currently offered tracks (eg, Visual Studio 2008), teaches the important skills in a guided path, making the learning process easier and more efficient. Currently, there are no assessments in the program, so it's quicker than ever to graduate and receive the reward (25% off on certification and 50% off on e-Learning - only for graduates of Ramp Up).

Enterprise Library 4.1 Just Released

2008-10-31T16:08:00.001+05:30

Quick Links:
– MSDN site: http://msdn.microsoft.com/entlib
– Community Forum: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=119312
– Community Extensions: http://codeplex.com/entlibcontrib
What’s New?
This release of Enterprise Library is a service release that includes the following:
– Unity interception mechanism and integration of the Policy Injection Application Block with the Unity Application Block
– Added support for generics in the Unity Application Block
– Added support for arrays in the Unity Application Block
– Performance improvements
– Usability improvements to the configuration tool
– Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1 support
– Bug fixes
For the detailed list of all changes, see About This Release of Enterprise Library.

Eclipse tool for silverlight

2008-10-17T11:01:00.000+05:30

The Eclipse Tools for Microsoft Silverlight Project will integrate advancedSilverlight development capabilities into the Eclipse IDE and Eclipse RichClient Platform (RCP). Have a look on http://www.eclipse4sl.org/

Silverlight 2 Released

2008-10-14T15:56:00.002+05:30

Silverlight is out now.
Click Here to get Started and Install Silverlight2
Click here for Videos of Silverlight 2

Microsoft Connected Technology Advisors group

2008-09-23T13:05:00.000+05:30

So, its been quiet few weeks that i was a dead blogger and there were lots of work happening on my front behind the scene. so let me share some good news. Now , I am also in Microsoft Connected Technology Advisors group. so People who are hearing this word would have brought a "wow" factor but let me tell you who are advisors are Influencers who want to be actively *involved* in Microsoft product planning and validation efforts. I have been in for 'Oslo' and beyond and includes BizTalk Server ‘6’ and updates to the .NET Framework ‘4’ (WF, WCF) amongst other investments. if you have some queries/questions and would like some of your feature to be available in next upcoming versions, pls do share with me and i would take in person with the Product teams in Microsoft

Silverlight Blueprints for SharePoint Released to CodePlex

2008-08-22T13:43:00.002+05:30

Today Microsoft released the source code for the Silverlight Blueprints for SharePoint—based on the Silverlight Beta 2 release. The Silverlight Blueprints for SharePoint provide a way for developers to better understand how to integrate Silverlight applications with SharePoint
In this release, you’ll find five blueprint samples:

1. Hello World
2. Media Player
3. Slider Control
4. Custom Navigation
5. Colleague Viewer

The links to get to the Silverlight Blueprints for SharePoint are:

1. http://www.ssblueprints.net/sharepoint/ --or direct at the CodePlex site
2. http://www.codeplex.com/SL4SP

Silverlight Blueprints for SharePoint Released to CodePlex

2008-08-22T13:43:00.000+05:30

SharePoint Certifications

2008-07-03T15:03:00.001+05:30

When we Say SharePoint, we refer to two product of Microsoft (WSS and MOSS). On certifications front also, Microsoft has released 2 certifications each on SharePoint and WSS. One of the certification deals with the application development and others deal with the administration.
Below are the certification details

MOSS certification

1. SharePoint Server 2007 ― Application Development certificationhttp://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/exams/70-542.mspx
2. Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 – Configuration credentialhttp://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/exams/70-630.mspx

WSS certification
1. Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 – Application Development certificationhttp://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/exams/70-541.mspx
2. MCTS: Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 – Configuration certificationhttp://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/exams/70-631.mspx

Silverlight Beta 2

2008-06-09T19:59:00.001+05:30

Silverlight Beta 2 is been released last week. if you would like to download silverlight, click here. If you would like to explore more on Silverlight Beta 2 and some of the new features, please go ahead and visit the blog of very famous scott guthie by clicking here. Also i would recommend you to go ahead and view this video from tim heuer by clicking here

Web Page Error Toolkit

2008-06-09T19:48:00.000+05:30

Anyone who has developed couple of web applications , they are very much aware of what 404 error page is .. well this error page is from IIS that comes when we type incorrect URL. well, this might happen due to variety of reasons like Pages deleted/moved or even the links in other pages have not been updated. well , this error page always look very strange to the end user who got no clue as to why and what was the mistake. Perhaps, even the developers were not having any way to handle this situation. This is where "web Page error toolkit" comes into the picture. This toolkit helps you customize 400 error page by giving good search results, relevant links or even helping to correct your spelling and many more. This sounds really an effective medium for any web applications running on top of .NET 2.0 or above. To download, click here.

StyleCop : Source Analysis Tool for C#

2008-06-06T12:37:00.000+05:30

Every solution based and product driven companies requires some set of best practices for coding guidelines and also for layout, readability and documentation. Developers have their own style of writing and since most of us as a developer used to write code as a part of team creates a sort of inconsistencies. if you have gone to MSDN or technet, you would observed a clearly readibility and consistency in the code. well, the reason behind is a Source analysis tool called StyleCop which is been matured within microsoft from over few years. Good thing is that it is now freely available. Source analysis tools are often get compared with code analysis tool. for e.g. obvious thing that would have came in your mind is FxCop. well, yes there are few similarities and few differences. Code analysis tool like fxCop work on binary files like assemblies while source analysis tool like StyleCop work with the code. StyleCop is well integrated with VS 2005/2008 and can be downloaded from here. It can also be integrated with MSBuilds based command line builds

IE 8 Betas

2008-06-04T11:03:00.002+05:30

Gone are those days where browser just recognizes plain HTML. Browsers are getting intelligent day by day. IE 8 Beta 1 is already released and have some of the good features like Activities, web slices etc to name a few. Also, this beta version also supports 5 languages and have full support of CSS 2.1 . To know more about the feature, click here.

To download , IE 8 Beta 1 , click here.

Going forward, IE 8 Beta 2 , expected to be released in coming months (Probably August) will support atleast 18-20 languages.

Sharepoint Web 2.0 Starter

2008-06-03T08:20:00.001+05:30

Microsoft is coming up with great speaker on sharepoint on "Sharepoint web 2.0 starter". Though this event will happen on June 11th event at the Microsoft Conference Center in Redmond, WA. If you happen to be in Redmond, get registered by clicking here. The whole event is also getting simulcasted via Live Meeting. You can join online at this full-day event and learn more about customizing and building Web pages, Web Parts, Silverlight, and more from a SharePoint context. if you want to join via live meeting, register by clicking here.

Working with VS 2008 SP1 in VISTA

2008-05-20T12:36:00.000+05:30

1. Visual Studio 2008 SP1 is already in a beta and can be downloaded from here
2. if you just want to download .NET 3.5 SP1 beta, it can be downloaded from here
3. Lot of enhancements and bugs fixes have been done. Overview of the same can be seen at here
4. There is a dedicated Microsoft forum for VS 2008 SP1 beta and can be visited at here

If you are one of the Vista users using VS 2008, and want to download the VS 2008 SP1. There are some issues related to installing .NET 3.5 SP1 on Vista RTM so better recommended approach is to install the SP 1 of Vista before installing VS 2008 SP1.

Article on Sharepoint workflow wizard in VS 2008

2008-05-20T00:06:00.000+05:30

Last weekend, got some good time to write an article on sharepoint workflow wizard in VS 2008. The article gives a brief detail on
1. Sharepoint workflows in VS 2008
2. Sharepoint workflow wizard in VS 2008 and its Pros/Cons
You can get it available from the below URL of code project site
http://www.codeproject.com/KB/WF/sharepointworkflow.aspx

Sharepoint Workflows in Visual Studio 2008

2008-05-16T11:39:00.004+05:30

Visual Studio 2008 provides lot of workflow templates. if you see the screen , two of those belong to Sharepoint.

1. SharePoint 2007 Sequential Workflow
2. SharePoint 2007 State Machine Workflow
Sequential workflow represents a workflow as a sequence of steps that must be executed in order until the last activity is completed. A state machine workflow represents a set of states, transitions, and actions. One state is denoted as the start state, and then, based on an event, a transition can be made to another state. Below is a typical example of a Sequential workflow.

when you select any of these workflow template, it executes the workflow wizard that allows to do debugging on the workflows on sharepoint that requires special permissions. for e.g this wizard takes care of deploying workflow customization on Global Assembly Cache (GAC). Wizard also takes care of associating the workflow template with a document library or list. It how an instance of your workflow can be started. Without VSTO you need to handle this outside of Visual Studio in separate steps. Really i would say that with lots of inclusion of sharepoint related work in Visual Studio, Microsoft is really making the life ease of the developers.

World wide Telescope

2008-05-13T14:10:00.001+05:30

Yesterday after downloading a software, the word that came from my mouth is "WOW" .. well , its NOT VISTA, my dear friends... it is World Wide Telescope from Microsoft Research. Microsoft Research team has came up with the product called World Wide Telescope, built on .NET framework 2.0. Presently it is in beta . You can install it in your machines and make your machine as a telescope. You can navigate to any place, any part, universe, glaciers etc .. Its really really awesome . this is far more superior to Google earth, Virtual earth etc..This product is been based on Web 2.0 Visualization technology ( one of the promising and upcoming technologies ) . WorldWide Telescope is created with the Microsoft® high performance Visual Experience Engine™ and allows seamless panning and zooming around the night sky, planets, and image environments. If you have a 3d Graphics card, .NET 2.0 and DirectX, download and get a glimpse of the beautiful world around.http://www.worldwidetelescope.org/ .

SharePoint 2007 Maximum Limitations

2008-05-12T12:31:00.005+05:30

The following table lists is the Maximum limitations lists in MOSS

Site collection : 50,000 per Web application
Web site : 250,000 per site collection
Subsite : 2,000 per Web site
Document : 5 million per library
Item : 2,000 per view
Document file size : 50MB (2GB max*)
List : 2,000 per Web site
Field type : 256 per list
Column : 2,000 per document library 4,096 per list
Web Part : 50 per page
Users in groups : 2 million per Web site
User profile : 5 million per farm
Security principal : 2,000 per Web site
Search indexes : One per SSPMaximum of 20 per farm
Indexed documents : 50,000,000 per content index
Content sources : 500 per SSP
Start Addresses : 500 per content source
Alerts : 1,000,000 per SSP
Scopes : 200 per site
Display groups : 25 per site
Crawl rules : 10,000 per SSP
Keywords : 15,000 per site
Crawled properties : 500,000 per SSP
Managed properties : 100,000 per SSP
Authoritative pages : 200 per relevance level
Results removal : 100
Crawl logs : 50,000,000
Shared Services Provider (SSP) : 3 per farm (20 per farm maximum)
Zone : 5 per farm
Web application : 99 per SSP
Internet Information Services (IIS) application pool: 8 per Web server
Site collection : 50,000 per Web application
Content database : 100 per Web application
Site collection : 50,000 per database
Index servers : 1 per SSP*
Application servers running Excel Calculation Services : No limit
Query servers : No limit
Web server/database server ratio : 8 Web servers per database server
Web server/domain controller ratio : 3 Web servers per domain controller

Reference of the same taken from http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262787.aspx

i’m Initiative : One of the Microsoft Great Initiative

2008-04-29T21:52:00.002+05:30

I have been posting lot of great initiatives by microsoft, be it on technology or be it on other initiatives like Marketing front. so here this post is more of a noble cause. Bill Gates is known for investing his few % of his investment(in Million dollars) for lot of noble causes. Be it for a college or for other social cause.Gates foundation formed by bill and melinda is one of the such example. One of such kind of social initiative that got started last year is i'm Initiative. i’m is an initiative from Windows Live™ Messenger. Every time you start a conversation using i’m, Microsoft shares a portion of the program's advertising revenue with some of the world's most effective organizations dedicated to social causes. In just one year, $1.3 Million is been donated to ten of the world’s most effective social cause organizations. This is really incredible and now you can expect the no. of users using i'm . so are you in i'm .. if not.. join it now :)

Microsoft DreamSpark :chase your dreams

2008-03-21T00:18:00.000+05:30

Microsoft have its own way of selling his product as a freebies to various kinds of customers. They used to give the software product eval license etc during any Microsoft events. This is a kind of a good marketing strategy and some people named it as "Free Products from Microsoft". Now, if i say, that if you just need to prove yourself as a student by showing your IDs and you are eligible for getting various Microsoft professional-level developer and design tools like Visual Studio 2008 professional edition, Expression studio, windows Server 2003 and many more and at no charge. if you are one of those computer geeks that fall in this category then yes, Microsoft have came up with something called "Microsoft DreamSpark".
Unfortunately, it is presently running in 11 countries but soon more and more countries will chip in to this. for more information click here

Silverlight and Sharepoint

2008-03-12T23:21:00.001+05:30

Microsoft is focusing on Silverlight to be the roadmap of all the presentation layer across Microsoft technologies. Now this is the time for a due collaboration of silverlight with Sharepoint. Yes, you can be incorporating silverlight in building web parts of sharepoint. Microsoft have recently released a blueprint of silverlight blueprint for sharepoint. Attach is the image that shows how the picture library of sharepoint will look like. There are many such samples available. Ofcourse, this integration of silverlight is very much possible with WSS 3.0 and MOSS. You can also download the source code of the same. for more information visit http://www.ssblueprints.net/sharepoint/

IE 8 Beta released

2008-03-09T01:14:00.000+05:30

IE 8 beta is been announced and can be downloaded by clicking Download here. There are some new features like Activities and WebSlices will put the power of online services in the hands of users and allow developers to reach beyond the page and keep a persistent connection with their users. Currently available only in English, the IE 8 Beta is especially for developers who can download, test and give their valuable feedback. Do visit www.microsoft.com/ie/ie8 for getting the latest update on the same.

MSDN Technet sessions DVDs

2008-03-09T01:05:00.000+05:30

Have you ever experienced of downloading Microsoft webcasts from Microsoft site for viewing it offline ? Isn’t it a very complex process? Back in September 2007, Microsoft,India has taken a very unique opportunity to record webcasts that will be presented to various large organizations in India. The sessions have been conducted on various upcoming technologies by few MVPs and members of DPE team in Microsoft,India. The idea is great, you do not need to download the webcast from MSDN which I do feel is one of the cumbersome work . These all sessions are been packed in two DVDs and are getting shared with various Microsoft partnered companies in India All you need to do is to put the DVD and go through your favorite topic. I had also taken a session of “WCF and .NET 3.5” where in I discussed about new features of .NET 3.5 especially for WCF. For those of you who have attended the session, please drop me your reviews /comments /suggestion. In case, if any body is interested in getting this DVD, please drop me a mail and I will facilitate the same.

Visual Studio Extensions for WSS 3.0

2008-02-20T12:58:00.000+05:30

Microsoft has released version 1.1 of the Visual Studio Extensions for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0! These are the tools that you use to build web parts, site definitions, etc. It can be downloaded from Here. This is a must install for all those developers working on building custom application on and over wss 3.0

2008 Wave Launch

2008-02-12T23:02:00.000+05:30

well the month has came and the countdown has begun. Feb 27th is the global launch date. Lot and lot of activities were going behind the scene and there are certain previews coming up and are available as public. If you would like a sneak peek of what the experience will look like, Microsoft have came up with some videos – this is a screen capture of the alpha code,To view click here on youtube. Built on Silverlight 1.0 it provides a virtual event experience based on the LA Launch event

Free Visual Studio 2008 book

2008-02-01T00:05:00.000+05:30

Please download this free e-book offer, created to promote the upcoming release of Visual Studio 2008. This includes sample chapters from Introducing Microsoft ASP.NET AJAX and Introducing Silverlight 1.0, as well as the entire contents of new publication Introducing Microsoft LINQ.

MVP for 2nd Consecutive year

2008-01-02T11:30:00.000+05:30

Today i received the much awaited mail informing me that I got rewarded as an Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) for this year 2008 as well. This is for the 2nd Consecutive Year. MVPs is the award that is given to technical community leaders from around the world who foster the free and objective exchange of knowledge by actively sharing real world expertise with users and Microsoft. My MVP Profile can be accessed in Microsoft site by click MVP Profile.

Web Service Software Factory: Modeling Edition - Released

2007-12-05T21:59:00.000+05:30

Web Service Software Factory: Modeling Edition ( aka Software factory ) is one of the new releases from the Patterns and practises group of Microsoft. The software factory helps developers and architects to built WCF and ASMX service with the best patterns and practices in the consistent manner. The Service Factory contains automation and guidance integrated into Visual Studio 2005 for building services. The core of the automation components is a Web services domain model. This domain model contains elements specific to WCF like Service contracts, operations, messages, and data contracts.

More info can be available on following resources

MSDN : http://msdn.microsoft.com/servicefactory

Community site: http://www.codeplex.com/servicefactory

Roadmap of Silverlight and .NET

2007-12-03T11:07:00.000+05:30

Microsoft have been in the news since its inception. This time, they are in the news for the series of releases of their product. October timeframe , Microsoft have released the source code of .NET Framework libraries. This was mainly help developer to understand how the libraries have been written and also to debug the code within the libraries which was not possible earlier. Apart from this, Microsoft is eyeing on Feb, 2008 to release some of its major products called SQL Server 2008, Visual Studio 2008 etc .. However, side by side, another exciting product that is gaining a lot of discussion is Silverlight. In a one line, i could say, Silverlight is compiled and must more robust product of Microsoft against Flash. Series of .NET Products are going to get released this year as well. The very famous, scott guthie has blogged on upcoming releases and can be accessed from here

VS 2008 Beta 2 WCF SVCUtil error

2007-09-12T10:38:00.000+05:30

Svcutil.exe is used to generate the WCF proxies. In VS 2008 Beta 2, if you create simple WCF application and try to generate proxy of your service, you may encounter the error that states

"
Unhandled Exception: System.IO.FileLoadException: Could not load file or assembl
y 'svcutil, Version=3.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a' o
r one of its dependencies. Strong name validation failed. (Exception from HRESUL
T: 0x8013141A)
File name: 'svcutil, Version=3.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11
d50a3a' ---> System.Security.SecurityException: Strong name validation failed. (
Exception from HRESULT: 0x8013141A)
The Zone of the assembly that failed was:
MyComputer
"
Solution

The problem is that SVCutil.exe is not been verified as a strong Name and one needs to do this in order to rectify the issues
1. Open Command Prompt
2. Go to C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\V6.0A\Bin folder
This is the folder where by default, all the utilities provided by .NET 3.5 is placed.
3. run sn -Vr svcutil.exe

it will respond as verification entry has been added for the assembly svcutil.

This is a generic problem and might can occur to other utilities. All you need to do is to put your utility name in place of svcutil.exe in the above and You are Done !!! I am sure this will be resolve in the next beta of VS 2008

Seminar on Distributed Computing

2007-09-09T01:40:00.000+05:30

Last week on September 1, 2007, I was honoured to be one of the speaker for Faculty Development Programme (FDP) organised by T-John College,Bangalore. T-John has invited faculties from almost all the colleges of bangalore and it was a very nice experience to share my views and spent time with all the college eminient teachers and professors.Along with me, there were three other speakers , 2 are scientist from DRDO and one person was from Cisco. I had given my seminar on "Distributed Computing" where in i spoke on the

1. current scenarios of distributed computing
2. challenges faced by today's distribuited computing
3. How to overcome those challenges with the latest Distributed computing

Visual Studio 2008 targets Multiple Frameworks

2007-08-16T17:47:00.000+05:30

Way back in Year 2005, i had blogged on why Visual Studio 2005 doesn't target .NET 1.x(if you missed it to read, click here). The problem is overcomed by Visual Studio 2008 aka ORCAS. Expected to be released in feb , 2008, Orcas is having an ample set of features to talk about apart from LINQ , which is one of the most awaited feature. So we have new things line up in areas of WF, WCF and many more and i would be blogging more on these areas as and when time permits. One of the most exciting feature that i came about is multi-targetting feature of Visual Studio 2008. what it means is that by Default, Visual Studio 2008 target .NET framework 3.5 but you can also get an opportunity to create projects targeting .NET 1.x, 2.0 and .NET 3.0 as well which was never been supported by any Visual Studio IDE. well now below are the ways by which you can change the target framework for the specific projects in Visual Studio 2008

1. when you create a Visual studio 2008 project, the option is available on the top right corner to select the version

2. You can also go on Project Properties --- > Application tab --- > set the target framework

Isn't this awsome feature.

Port Sharing Features in WCF

2007-08-08T12:35:00.000+05:30

HTTP with Port 80 allows to share Port 80 with multiple web applications. If you want other TCP ports to be shared by multiple applications, there is not an easy way to achieve the same. Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) allows multiple application to share the same TCP port. I had written an article on the same as how WCF enable a TCP port to be shared by multiple applications

Please have a look on Port sharing feature of WCF

Now comes MSCD

2007-08-08T10:58:00.000+05:30

Recently Microsoft havce recently launched its new product called Microsoft Secure Content Downloader (MSCD)which is based on Bittorrent and is used to download the Microsoft content securely. one of the limitation of the MCSD is that it cannot cross firewalls so presently , though it is in testing phase, this might be for only end users who are not behind firewalls. Also MCSD downloads limited Microsoft products like Visual Studio 2008, soon we might be able to see it for large downloads if this is been a success :) .. cool, so now if you are like me and wants to play with the new MCSD, Click Here to download the New MCSD

Global Launch wave date : Feb 27,2008

2007-07-17T10:26:00.000+05:30

Having releases of three global products to be launched on the same day .. isn't it some thing different that Microsoft hasn't done in his history .. But yes, things are coming true. Feb, 27,2008 is suppose to be the global launch date of

1. Windows Server 2008 (aka Longhorn)
2. Viusal Studio 2008 (aka ORCAS)
3. SQL Server 2008(aka Katamai)

check out this article http://redmondmag.com/news/article.asp?EditorialsID=8800

wherein Microsoft COO Kevin Turner announced the same at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference in Denver. I am waiting for D-Launch Date.

No More OEM Microsoft Office 2003 after June 30th

2007-06-19T11:57:00.000+05:30

After June 30, 2007, OEM Microsoft Office 2003 will no longer be available from Microsoft. I do feel that this is really a nice decision on behalf of Microsoft. It has been some time that developers and end users have started working on Office 2k7 , they have given various comments but have appreciated the Office 2k7. This decision will not only give a decent path to say Good Bye to Ok but also invite a lot of professionals to use Office 2k7 who are still sticked with Office 2k3. More information about the same is available by clicking Here

Windows Server 2008 Beta .. Great stability

2007-06-14T16:40:00.000+05:30

From one of the blogs post from MS employee about Windows Server 2008 Beta3:
"microsoft.com site is running 100% on Windows Server 2008 Beta 3 "

It shows how stable Windows Server 2008 beta3, already is

To get more updates on Windows Server 2008 , click Here

2007-05-30T16:38:00.000+05:30

Have a look on the Microsoft new computing Device called "Surface" aka Project code "Milan". The surface is more kind of PC that runs Vista in the back but rather than working with keyboard and mouse, it works on a touch-sensitive display. image to your right is Bill Gates talks with TODAY tech editor Paul Hochman while demonstrating his company's new computing device, Surface. I am sure that few years down the line, this news inventions gonna change the way people perceive the PC. Its just a wait and watch situation for us

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,2138251,00.asp

Microsoft also came up with a separate site

http://www.microsoft.com/surface/

Virtual Tech Ed

2007-05-28T15:11:00.000+05:30

Greats News !!!
You can attend Tech Ed “virtually” though J. You can easily access Tech·Ed content that include webcasts, virtual labs, podcasts – when you want, where you want.
http://www.virtualteched.com/Pages/default.aspx

TechMela 2007 , Agenda

2007-05-16T13:48:00.000+05:30

Moving ahead with my blog entries on TechMela 2007, below is the Agenda for the same on Day 14,15 and 16th Respectively. Click on the below image to get more clearer view

No TechEd 2007 this time in India, TechMela Aka TechED 2007

2007-05-14T10:10:00.000+05:30

On 28th April, I have blogged a post about TechEd 2007 dates in which i mention about the techEd, happening in Mumbai from June 13. To know more about that posts, click Here .To get more curious, one of the bad news is that this time, there will be no Tech Ed 2007 across cities in India. The TechEd has been wrapped with a new name called TechMela and this TechMela is happening in only one location in India i.e. Mumbai. It seems Microsoft have done it to make the TechMela a huge success and to bring the Indian IT mass in one location. This TechMela is divided into 2 zones.

1. for Business Users, its on 13th June
2. for Technology users, its on 14,15and 16th June

Click here to register for TechMela

Not sure, if its going to be a good success. For the people, who are living in other locations apart from mumbai, there is something good. Well not good as TechEd alias TechMela, Just keep an eye on my blog. I am going to blog it soon !!!

Hotmail Gets bigger

2007-05-09T10:24:00.000+05:30

Now hotmail is as bigger as 2 GB. Though most of the existing hotmail user might be using it from the beta versions, but for the email users, its a news. if you haven't upgraded your account till now, Click here to upgrade

TechEd 2007 Dates

2007-04-28T00:19:00.000+05:30

Tech Ed 2007 dates have been published now and its going to happen in May end- June 2007 all over india. The dates for Tech Ed to happen in Mumbai is been revealed to be June 13-16 2007. still the dates on other places of India is yet to be finalized. More information about Tech Ed 2007 can be available by clicking Tech ED

Office 2003 compatibility with Office 2007 docs

2007-04-04T17:52:00.000+05:30

As if now, today's generations of IP professionals are working on two versions of Ms Office

MS Office 2003
MS Office 2007

There are numerous benefits of using office 2007 and you can really experience only when you download and work on office 2007 docs. Now if you see the documents creates using office 2007, they have the extensions of office 2003 docs preceded by "x" character. for e.g. Docx, Xlsx etc. The problems of sending these documents to the Office 2003 camps professionals is that they are unable to open the documents. So generally office 2007 camps professional used to save it in the office 2003 format and then send the docs. Though this is still available a better option is to ask the colleague to download Office compatibility pack that’ll allow you to open these documents in Office 2003.

To Download the compatibility pack , click here

I hope it now saves a life of lot of office 2007 camps

Offline links for WCF webcasts

2007-03-31T12:13:00.000+05:30

I am back on the blog and to all the people who are intrested in viewing the offline view of my webcasts that i delivered last week for Microsoft India, here are the link

1. Beginning on WCF
2. Securing services with WCF
3. Programming with WCF
4. Understanding endpoints with WCF
5. Implemention Service Oriented architecture by WCF

It was quite nice to get in touch with lot of passionate developers,who have some familiar and unfamilaiar questions about WCF.

Webcasts on Windows Communication Foundation

2007-03-08T18:35:00.000+05:30

I will be delivering webcast series on Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) this month. The webcasts are schedule back to back from 26th march – 30th March 2007 from 4 PM to 5 PM IST

26th - Beginning with WCF
27th - Implementing Service Oriented Architecture through WCF
28th - Understanding Endpoints with WCF
29th - Programming with WCF
30th - Securing services with WCF

All the 5 webcasts are open for registrations on Microsoft site

hope to see many of the blog readers online :)

Orcas Latest CTP

2007-03-01T19:21:00.000+05:30

Latest CTP of Orcas delivered today and can be downloaded by clicking here

it contains a lot of cool stuff like

1. WCF/WF designer
2. ATLAS integration
3. and lots of enhanced feature for WCF like templates for authoring WCF service, Enhanced REST/Pox Model etc

and many more

SQL Server 2005 SP2 released

2007-02-20T10:44:00.000+05:30

Microsoft has announced release of SQL Sevrer 2005 Service Pack 2. To download the Service Pack 2 version click on download
New features of Service Pack2 can be seen by clicking
here

Sample chapter uploaded

2007-02-19T12:19:00.000+05:30

The first chapter of my book, Introducing Service Oriented Architechture is been uploaded in Apress Site as sample chapter

click on Chapter 1 to download

Got the Books

2007-02-12T15:37:00.000+05:30

Though i was very busy in my current work schedule, and i really miss the opportunity to blog. Finally, i want to start it with sharing a good news. Last feek i got the hard copies of the book, that recently i have co-authored. It was very soothing to have a touch and feel. Though book has been published world wide last month itself, it might take few more months to hit Indian Market. The book is avalable at APress, BarnesAndNoble,Amazon and BookPool. You can get down to it through the below links

Link to Book on Apress
Link to Barnesandnoble for Purchase
Link to Amazon for Purchase
Link to Bookpool for Purchase

Visual Studio 2005 Service Pack 1 Unleashed

2007-01-29T18:10:00.000+05:30

couple of days earlier, much awaited service pack 1 of Visual Studio 2005 was released. There are somewhere around 400 issues that have been taken care in this release and all of them can be available at http://connect.microsoft.com/visualstudio/content/content.aspx?contentid=4324
If you want to download the Visual Studio 2005 Service Pack 1 ..click on this

Me being Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP)

2007-01-02T13:38:00.000+05:30

On eve of new year, i got a great news to share. I got myself lucky to be among the elite group of an Most Valuable Professional(MVP). MVPs is the award that is given to technical community leaders from around the world who foster the free and objective exchange of knowledge by actively sharing real world expertise with users and Microsoft. I had just thought to update my MVP profile and can be accessed through MVP Profile. My name has also been updated in Indian MVP List

TOC of Book

2006-12-26T14:10:00.000+05:30

In respect to lot of mails that i received about Table Of Contents(TOC) of our book , so here is the attached TOC for my book, Pro WCF: Practical Microsoft SOA Implementation for APress Publication. The book is divided into three parts, with first being the introduction to WCF , second about programming and third on Advanced topics of WCF.

PART 1 Introducing Windows

Communication Foundation

nCHAPTER 1 Introducing Service-Oriented Architecture . . . . . . 3

nCHAPTER 2 Introducing WCF Basics . . . . . . 25

nCHAPTER 3 Exploring the WCF Programming Model . . . . . . . 51

PART 2 Programming with WCF

nCHAPTER 4 Installing and Creating WCF Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99

nCHAPTER 5 Hosting and Consuming WCF Services . . . . . . . . .145

nCHAPTER 6 Managing WCF Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179

PART 3 Advanced Topics in WCF

nCHAPTER 7 Implementing WCF Security . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . .213

nCHAPTER 8 Implementing Reliable Messaging and Queue-Based

Communications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249

nCHAPTER 9 Using Transactions in WCF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277

nCHAPTER 10 Integrating with COM+ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .301

nCHAPTER 11 Working with Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .335

nCHAPTER 12 Developing Peer-to-Peer Applications with WCF . . . . . . . . . . 371

nCHAPTER 13 Implementing SOA Interoperability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 401

PART 4 Appendixes

nAPPENDIX A QuickReturns Ltd. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 425

nAPPENDIX B History of Microsoft Web Service Implementations . . . . . . . . .431

nAPPENDIX C WCF and .NET Framework Installation Steps . . . . . . . . . . . . . 441

Book scheduled Date on January 15

2006-12-22T11:27:00.000+05:30

Hi all
As you all knew that, i along with my colleague is involved in writing a book on WCF for APress Publication. Some good news that i would like to share with you is Book is on the print and if every thing goes fine, is scheduled to hit the market on January 15. The book has been foreword by none other than Thom Robbins.He is presently working as a Director for .NET Platform Marketing and is associated with Microsoft for almost six years. And as many of you has asked, I will furnish the TOC by today or in this weekend.

Windows SDK for Windows Vista RTM revealed

2006-11-08T11:35:00.000+05:30

So much awaited news came.

Here are the public links, that just came online. They may take a little time to make it to your part of the world...

Web Setup...
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=C2B1E300-F358-4523-B479-F53D234CDCCF&displaylang=en

ISO DVD Image...
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=7614FE22-8A64-4DFB-AA0C-DB53035F40A0&displaylang=en

.NET framework 3.0 component
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=10CC340B-F857-4A14-83F5-25634C3BF043&displaylang=en

WCF RC 1 go live

2006-09-02T18:21:00.000+05:30

Much awaited news... The Windows Communication Foundation's Release Candidate are now live.

you can download the .NET Framework 3.0 with the WCF bits from
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=19E21845-F5E3-4387-95FF-66788825C1AF&displaylang=en

for more info, visit clemens blog

MSDN for Free download

2006-08-02T10:05:00.000+05:30

Now, MSDN Library is free for download without any MSDN Subscription. you need to be connected to avail the benefit. It can be free download to everyone: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=373930cb-a3d7-4ea5-b421-dd6818dc7c41&DisplayLang=en

.NET Framework 3.0 July CTP is out

2006-07-21T12:11:00.000+05:30

Win Fx aka .NET Framework 3.0 's July CTP is out and can be downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=62057A6F-185F-41DB-ABE5-678F6FC388F0&displaylang=en.
Downloaded it yesterday and found that there is still some documentation missing and there are no VS Extensions with
this version. Not much major changes from June CTP as far WCF
is concerned..

My first book

2006-06-21T16:24:00.000+05:30

Thought to share with you now for the work that i and few of my colleagues were working on since many months. I am a coauthor of this book and the book is on Windows Communication Foundation alias Indigo. The book is more on developer's perspective of analyzing WCF and using Service Orientation. More info is available on
http://www.apress.com/book/bookDisplay.html?bID=10185

I will also be posting few articles on WCF on my blog.. So keep tracking ..

new command interpreter : MONAD

2006-04-07T14:22:00.000+05:30

Shells are used as the command interpreter in unix/linux. In Microsoft
windows, it is been done by cmd.exe. Microsoft is coming up with the
new command interpreter for Windows Vista and is termed as Monad
(Monad Shell) or MSH. This Monad interpreter runs in any OS where
.NET 2.0 can be installed such as Windows XP SP2 or Windows Server
2003 SP1. Learn more about Monad with http://www.microsoft.com/technet/scriptcenter/hubs/msh.mspx

Feb CTP : No Pain No Gain

2006-02-28T15:26:00.000+05:30

Feb CTP is out on http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/
details.aspx?FamilyId=F51C4D96-9AEA-474F-86D3-1
72BFA3B828B&displaylang=en. There are lots of changes
between Jan and Feb CTP.If talked about WCF, November,
December and jan CTP are on the same track while on feb
CTP, they had added few DCRs that Microsoft was working
in silos earlier. Anyhow, its really a pain to see keywords and
namespace changing with every CTP but i do believe the
Feb CTP is now very stablized and close to what the final
RTM will look like.

WCF and WWF Go live

2006-01-19T16:02:00.000+05:30

Microsoft announced Go Live licenses this morning for Windows
Communication Foundation (WCF, previously - Indigo) and
Windows Workflow Foundation (WWF) , which lets customers
use the January Go Live releases of WCF and WWF in their
deployment environments. WPF is not included in it. More
information about the Go Live program is at
http://msdn.microsoft.com/winfx/getthebeta/
golive/default.aspx.

Windows Vista Release date , Nov 2, 2006

2006-01-16T15:05:00.000+05:30

Microsoft are likely to hit final Vista product with a deadline of Nov, 2 , 2006. So now we are preety sure that we can get the hands on experience on RTM of Windows Vista in this year. Earlier the release date was scheduled on June,2006 but testing staff for Vista has proposed a new date for it

SetFocusOnError property in ASP.NET 2.0

2006-01-13T11:07:00.000+05:30

In ASP.NET 1.x, if we want to put the focus on a control if a validation fails based on the validation control, we need to tweak around webUiValidation.Js and modify it to work for us. Now in ASP.NET 2.0, we got a couple of options to do it. We got a SetFocus method as a part of Page in which we can pass the id of the control to get focus,

 Page.SetFocus(txtName);

we got a new property called SetFocusOnError which is set on validator controls to cause the first invalid control to receive focus.

<asp:TextBox ID="txtRollId" runat="server"></asp:TextBox>

 <asp:RequiredFieldValidator SetFocusOnError="true"
 ErrorMessage="RollId is empty" ID="RequiredFieldValidator2"
 ControlToValidate=" txtRollId" Display="Dynamic"
runat="server">*
</asp:RequiredFieldValidator>

Check out the SetFocusOnError = true set in requiredFieldvalidator

MSBuild - Part 2

2006-01-06T11:04:00.000+05:30

Implementing MSBuild in Whidbey

You can implement MSBuild in Whidbey by creating an MSBuild project file that you can use to compile a .NET project. The MSBuild project file is an XML file with the .proj extension. The MSBuild project file describes the build process of a .NET project. A console application of the MSBuild tool, called msbuild.exe, performs the build process. This application receives project files as input and processes them synchronously. You can create an MSBuild project file using the Visual Studio .NET IDE. To create an MSBuild project file:

1. Create a folder, MSBuild, at the C:\WINNT\System32\ location to save the project file.

2. Copy the msbuild.exe file from the C:\WINNT\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.40607 location and save it at the C:\WINNT\System32\MSBuild location.

3. Select Start -> Programs -> Microsoft Visual Studio Whidbey -> Microsoft Visual Studio codename Whidbey to open the Microsoft Visual Studio Whidbey IDE.

4. Select File -> New -> File to open the New File window

5. Select XML File and click Open to open the Code Editor window
Enter the code in the Code Editor window to create an MSBuild project file.

6. Select File -> XMLFile1.xml to open the Save File As dialog box.

7. Select the MSBuild directory from the Save in drop-down list box to specify the location where you want to save the project file.

8. Select the All Files (*.*) option from the Save as type drop-down list box and enter the MSBuildProj file name with the .proj extension in the File name text box to create an MSBuild project file.

9. Enter the following command at the command prompt to build the MSBuild project file that you create:

WINNT\System32\MSBuild MSBuild MSBuildProj.proj

MsBuild - Part 1

2006-01-05T10:35:00.000+05:30

MSBuild - Part 1

From today, i will starting the tutorial on new tools available with .NET
Framework 2.0. so lets have some overview of MsBuild.
Microsoft Build Engine (MSBuild) is a tool to compile and build a Visual Studio (VS) .NET project without using the VS .NET Integrated Development Environment (IDE). The various open-source build tools include Build .NET, .NET Another Neat Tool (NAnt) etc

This tool enables you to customize the build process according to your requirements. For example, you can include functions, such as labeling builds and retrieving the latest versions of projects, from a source code control provider, such as Visual Source Safe, into the build process.

The MSBuild tool provides an execution engine, which builds and executes MSBuild project files. The MSBuild project file is an XML-based file that contains information about compiling .NET projects. The execution engine also synchronously runs all the tasks defined in MSBuild project files.

To be continued

Need of Service Oriented Designing

2006-01-03T11:43:00.000+05:30

If we look on any of enterprise standards, we always find that enterprise are presently accumulated with lots of software made up of new and old architecture, tightly integrated with each other and dependent on specific platform. If we look at the history of architecture, earlier in 1980s, most of the architecture was monolithic and there was no need to concentrate on the integration part of the product. At that time, if the product is doing the desired task, it was treated as the good software. But as soon as market changes and so technology too, company then look for some more loosely coupled architecture. There comes the magic of client/Server and then 3-tier, N tier and also distributed components. Object Oriented was really helpful in solving the problems of day today applications and making the life easier for the developers. One of the basic problems with Object oriented design is to modelling the application interaction. Presently the need of the market for the software is something like pluggable components, which can be changed according to market needs, business trends or on companys needs there was a need of loosely coupled architecture and this is where Service oriented architecture comes into the scene. Reusable application components will continue to find new clients that will need to consume them. In the past, component-based code reuse would suffice, but in most companies today the need for cross-platform reuse makes any proprietary strategy very short-sighted. The constant need for agility, platform independence, and return on investment (ROI), and multi-client capabilities will continue to drive any enterprise to service-oriented design.

To be continued

Visual Studio 2005 will support .NET 1.X

2005-12-29T12:13:00.000+05:30

In my previous post , i mentioned that what are the issues that stops Whidbey team to target 1.x and reasons for that. But here is something good news !!!. In an effort to support 1.x, Microsoft MsBuild team will be targetting 1.x. Project name is MSBee, which stands for MSBuild Everett Environment. For more details, look out for the same in some MSDN blogs.. Everett was the code name for Visual Studio 2003. Though the release date of the same has not been fixed, but still hoping to get it released by june, 2006 something with the release of longhorn :)

Visual studio 2005 targets only one versions

2005-12-28T11:17:00.000+05:30

After the release of VS.NET 2005, I was always having a thought about why this new versions doesn't supports .NET 1.x. After a lot of reasearch and interacts with microsoft newsgroups, i had found something reasonable. I had a talk with Microsoft team guys about it and what they provide me was some links pointing to few blogs. One of them which i found really fascinating was

http://blogs.msdn.com/johnri/archive/2005
/11/29/498219.aspx

look at the blog and got your answer why VS.NET 8 targets only 1 version. I am also looking forward from the answers from other building team in MS and would be certainly posting it soon.

Was Web Services the first SOA Implementation

2005-12-26T12:56:00.000+05:30

That’s sounds really great to hear the music of SOA prevailing all around with the WCF.I would like to mention here is that SOA and WCF are two different things. Many of us are of false impression that SOA and WCF are the two phases of the same coin.SOA are another guidelines of implementing the distributed apps. It is a design guideliness and helps us to get benefited from the past bitter experiences and WCF is the practical implementation of SOA.We always says that we are selling Services through SOA. So what’s the difference between web services and services of SOA? Of course it’s quiet debating that web services are the first step to achieve SOA implementation. But are web services practically implementing the so called four tenets of SOA. First of all, web services are only invoked through HTTP which makes it tightly coupled with the HTTP transport protocol. Though it has been a bit changes after WSE 2.0. What about the communication techniques in ASMX? It has only one i.e. request/response. WCF on the other hand implements all the four tenets of SOA. With Unification of distributed technologies that are prevailing till now. SOA has a messaging protocol as SOAP but the communication techniques can be duplex, simplex and even request response. I often heard that services needs to be asynchronous to be scalable but we also can't deny the fact that applications do requires immediate response. Nevertheless, if we say that web services was the first step for implementing SOA , I do feel to shout about its negligence of practically implementing the autonomous tenet of Service Orientation.

Is remoting Dead with WCF?

2005-12-23T14:36:00.000+05:30

Well, Many a times it happens that we use a technology and set some best patterns and practices for the same. As and when a technology ceases, we start looking for new patterns and practices. Microsoft has also had a group for the same. Ofcourse , since the last few years, we were always been in comparing .NET remoting vs web services. Ofcourse, former is been known for its performance and later is known for the interoperability. With the new distributed technology coming into the arena,i.e. Windows Communication Foundation(WCF), formely known as indigo, there is lot of hustle bustle in the developers. Will the existing application will be able to work with it ? What about upgradation path ? One of the main queries that i got when we talk about SOA and WCF with my peers Is Remoting Dead ? What will happen to Web Services etc..I always try to reply it in different ways until i heard the best one from Steve Swartz
which states "When you have another child, do you stop loving your previously conceived children? No, you love and support them all". I hope after publishing this on my blogs, I would make some of you remember abt it :)

Managed Objects in Yukon

2005-12-23T10:49:00.000+05:30

Got some time to wrote another article on using Managed Objects in Yukon. You can get the link at http://www.codeproject.com/useritems/
CLR_in_Sql_Server_2005.asp
in case URLs still working . Happy Christmas and Happy Coding too!!!! J

bill Gates Live Dec 9

2005-12-11T15:32:00.000+05:30

On December 9th, I got a chance to attend a confrence in Palace Ground , Bangalore where Mr. Business(Bill Gates) was the man of the moment. It was really fun to be out there. near about 5000 IT professionals were gathered out there and it was good to hear about future policies of microsoft investing in India. Sheila Gulati Director, Developer and Platform Evangelism Microsoft India was asking Oozz and Azzz queries from Mr. Gates. One of the new sites was www.code4bill.com through which Microsoft is seeking unveiled a nationwide talent hunt .
Last Year in November, Steve Ballmer visited india, this year Bill Gates, whats next for the year.. I Wish if some gurus of technology like Don Box, Anders hejlsberg, scott wiltamutt, etc.. We can just wait and watch :)

Is Google Earth not raising the security concerns

2005-10-17T17:17:00.000+05:30

Gone are those days where computing is limited to your desktop processing. Needless to mention, Microsoft has changed the way by bringing desktop computers @ home. Things were very fine till the advent of Internet and more. Earlier where companies are happy with monolithics and client server architecture, now they are more likely building their components based on Components and Service Oriented Architecture to name few. Microsoft has been very revolutionary in developing very user friendly UIs. But on other hand, Many companies like Google has came with the concept of virtual softwares. This is one of the reason why AJAX is getting very popular now a days. Google Earth, which got released this year got the appreciation from many on one side while it arouses a concerns about individual privacy and security.When everything comes in your way you're in the wrong lane.I am wondering why government are not raising any security issues on the same. Though i read articles in which our honouable president Mr. Kalam has aroused about security issues but i do feel that Govt of India should wake up and have a stop on allowing any satelites to view sensitive location , be it be a parliament house or India Gate, atleast it should not be available for the public masses. just to want to say this about Google Earth is the light at the end of the tunnel may be an incoming train. Hope some public masses should raise an appeal for it. Fingers Crossed

Happy Birthday to me (12th October) and Happy Dussehra to You all

2005-10-11T18:41:00.001+05:30

Probably after 7 months without any leave in weekdays, I am thinking of a rest tommorow. Just because its some special day.As i would not be accessing internet, if possible , here i am writing something specially for me to wish myself on the special day

Happy Birthday to me

Today (12^th October) is my special Day!
shouting Hip Hip hooray!
entire wishes I get for peace, joy and fun
Today really I m exalted one.

And where ever I go and anyone I meet today
All the near and dears will say,
"Happy Dussehra , bliss and joy!"
And thrill to see the birthday boy.

// for my Parents, mentors and my brothers and sisters

Not just on my Birthday, but all other days too.
That's what everyday I want to say all of you
Thanks for being Kind, Loving, Giving & Caring.
A real connection is what we are sharing.

// for none other than my forever friends
You've stayed with me through good & bad.
Being away from you all makes me Sad.
So dance and sing and have a ball!
And thanks for Birthday Wishes from u all!

Tired of SQL

2005-10-11T11:38:00.000+05:30

Object Relation mapping tool

O/R Mapping means Object/Relation Mapping. All of our application deals with objects as well as relational database.

A typical application consist of three layers namely

Presentation Layer
Business logic layer
Data Access Layer

Now if we consider using of objects, we find that Objects are used in Presentation and business layer, but our Data access layer works with Relational database, which is very different from how we access our objects. Today any world application is been handled in OO fashion. Wasnât it something great if we access our Relational database in OO manner. Before we go further, its also needed as when we talk about our data access layer , we find that Data Access Layer is responsible for any code to save, delete, and retrieve your object from the database. You write methods in your DAL to retrieve different sets of objects, change status', and perform various other tasks. Writing this data access code *can be* very repetitive. To avoid this , now we use ORM tool rather than DAL. Yes, thatâs true. Now we didnât need to write those Insert, Update, Delete and Select statement , these all things is carried by our O/R Mapping tool. So now we have scenario something like this

Objects ----- ORM Mapper ----Relational Database

It is a common scene that our objects does not have 100% exact mapping with the database columns. For e.g. , we might be interested in having the having one column in the table which resembles two column in the Objects or vice versa. There is also the name conflict which means that what it means as Fname in the object resembles FirstName in some table of some database. So what we need is a mapping between those objects and relational database. What GNOME is doing is that it is It generates the data access layer from the class model and schema mapping to the relational model provided by the developer. This introduces object-oriented concepts and true refactoring down to the data access logic tier

Presently i am working with such a product called Genome. Initially, it might raise a kind of confusion and hustle-bustle for developers as most of them are familiar with those SQl Statements, but this is something i belive will be the future implementation of accessing the database as we can really accessing our Database in a OO manner. In Genome, rather than using SQL, we access the data through persistent classes and also have its own language called OQL. Unlike Sql, OQL is a case sensitive language. so Guys, traditional mechanism of accessing the data needs to be changed in the coming years. This forsight is also getting implemented in few of products of Microsoft. Any Guesses

Code Name changes

2005-10-03T19:49:00.000+05:30

There's always a market hype for the products of Microsoft. Microsoft too always invest his most of its resources in r&D and needless to mention, unique ways of identifying its products. May be through cool adds, or may be through code names , MSDN training programs etc.. There is always an appreciation from either side of the camps,one who's against them and one who supports MS.

Since begining, I am very keen to know about the origin of the code names and for me , if u want to get acquinted with any subject or technology, first step is to read his history. Be it be a whidbey, an island north of Seattle or Orcas etc. Some days back, i was really confused to hear two a new term, Windows Communication Foundation and Windows Presentation Foundation, not to worry, they are just another name of Indigo and Avalon. MS is always known for selling old things in New packets. Well Indigo looks very cooler but still now markets should get acquinted with WCF or might be some Unified Framework a later on. Keep a watch

Beta 1 and Beta 2 changes for .NET 2.0

2005-10-03T19:32:00.000+05:30

Data Design Time Changes Beta1 to Beta2

http://blogs.msdn.com/vbteam/archive/2005/01/12/351495.aspx

ASP.NET 2.0 product design changes between Beta 1 and Beta 2

http://blogs.msdn.com/bgold/archive/2004/11/15/257961.aspx

Features postponed for ASP.NET 2.0 Beta 2

http://msdn.microsoft.com/asp.net/whidbey/beta2changes.aspx

SQL Server 2005 Beta 2: What's New

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/community/
chats/trans/sql/SQL_072804.mspx

ADO.NET Code Transitions to New Beta

http://www.123aspx.com/redir.aspx?res=26660

C# (Changes from beta 1.0.2204 to beta2 1.0.2914)

http://www.123aspx.com/redir.aspx?res=26379

Clipboard data available through Javascript and ASP

2005-08-30T09:52:00.001+05:30

We do copy various data by ctrl+c for pasting
elsewhere. This copied data is stored in clipboard and
is accessible from the net by a combination of java-scripts and ASP.
This is achieved by a script like this ..

<Script Language="JavaScript">
var content = clipboardData.getData("Text");
if (content!=null) {
document.write(content);
else {document.write('<center>No text found in clipboard. This is a good thing!<br><br>Works with Internet Explorer and Netscape.');}
</Script>

Click the Link: http://www.sourcecodesworld.com/special/clipboard.asp
3) You will see the text you copied on the Screen
which was accessed by this web page.

Do not keep sensitive data (like passwords, creditcard
numbers, PIN etc.) in the clipboard while surfing the web. It is
extremely easy to extract the text stored in the clipboard to steal your sensitive information.

UIPAB (Part 2)

2005-07-27T12:37:00.000+05:30

I had written the second article on UIPAB. You can find the same on http://www.codeproject.com/useritems/UIPAB.asp. This article explains you about how to work on UIPAB. First article that was published on http://www.codeproject.com/dotnet/UIPAB.asp explains about why and when to use UIPAB.

Longhorn Alias Windows Vista

2005-07-27T12:35:00.000+05:30

Next version of Windows finally has an official name: Windows Vista.Earlier its name was Longhorn. Microsoft is expected to ship it in later months of 2007

Article on UIPAB

2005-07-25T12:28:00.000+05:30

Microsoft application block is put up by pattern and practices group of Microsoft. UIPAB is one of those infrastructural areas which are been addressed as higher level issue and needs to be resolved. Though .NET Framework provides sets of core services but still to make our application more scalable, maintainable and also reusable, we need application blocks. I will be trying to summarize the UIPAB in two articles series. This is the first article of the series, which contains an information about the brief description of UIPAB and some of the keywords used in UIPAB. My second article will go in depth of the UIPAB with the demonstration. My first article is published in http://www.codeproject.com/useritems/UIPAB.asp.