Serendipity
Wow, big word. I picked it up from Dr Who (Circa Jon Pertwee around 1970) and I don't think its been relevant to me in any meaningfull way until now.
So here are some of the things that have come together:
1. I have a large collection of stereo (3d) images, nost of them 100-150 years old) that I am finally getting around to digitising
2. Since working on a geographic information System for a large Insurer I have maintained an interest in GIS
3. 1 & 2 come together in so much as I am tracking down the locations of these old images and geocoding them
4. Of course 1 & 3 are very time consumming but for the first time in a while I have scheduled some time off for training (WPF/Silverlight etc)
So I guess I need to get my head down and take advantage of this.
TechEd 2008
Well I made it to techEd in Orlando this year:
Day 0
Off to a good start - I had booked the cheapest rental car but on ariving got the choice of any car in the 'compact' section of the lot. I chose a nice cream "PT Cruiser" as it has a distinctly US look about it. I'm staying at the 'ExtendedStayAmerica', which has a shortcut to the back of the OCC (not quite as great as it sounds as it takes you to the west building - still quite a long (albeit air-conditioned) walk to the North/South buildings where Teched is situated this year). Up at six on Monday morning I wandered over and to register and take a general look around. I worked through some of the practice labs before deciding to walk back the 'other' way - it took about the same time but my T was dripping wet when I got back (92 degrees). I think I will stick with the air-conditioned shortcut for the rest of the week!
Schedule
Tuesday, June 3
| 8:30 AM - 10:00 AM
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| 10:30 AM - 11:45 AM
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ARC207 Pragmatic Architecture: The Role of an Architect
S320 C
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TLA321 Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 IDE Tips and Tricks (Repeats on 6/6)
S320 A
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| 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
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ARC08-TLC Architect or Developer: Tips and Tricks for Guiding and Supporting Innovation
Blue Theater 1
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| 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
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| 1:15 PM - 2:30 PM
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DVP310 Agile Database Development
S330 C
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| 3:00 PM - 4:15 PM
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TLA310 End-to-End Database Development Using Microsoft Visual Studio Team System 2008 Database Edition
S330 A
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| 4:45 PM - 6:00 PM
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DVP11-TLC Scrum-tastic Development with Microsoft Visual Studio Team System and Light Weight Scrum
Red Theater 1
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| 6:00 PM - 9:00 PM
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Wednesday, June 4
| 8:30 AM - 9:45 AM
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TLA304 The Nine Essential Power Tools for Every Developer: Extending Microsoft Visual Studio to Enhance the Microsoft Office Development Experience
S320 E
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| 10:15 AM - 11:30 AM
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SOA207 Platforms for SOA and Business Process Management: Comparing .NET and Java
S220 C (DEV)
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| 11:45 AM - 2:00 PM
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| 12:00 PM - 12:45 PM
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| 1:00 PM - 2:15 PM
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WUX208 Behind the Maps: The Technology of Microsoft Virtual Earth
S230 A
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| 2:45 PM - 4:00 PM
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ARC310 The Science Behind Creating a Great User Experience (Repeats on 6/5)
S320 A
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| 4:30 PM - 5:45 PM
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WUX309 Tips, Tricks, and Techniques for Building Great Microsoft Silverlight Applications
S210 E
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| 6:30 PM - 7:30 PM
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| 6:30 PM - 9:00 PM
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Birds-of-a-Feather Evening
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Microsoft Certification Testing Center - Cram4Exam Night Sessions
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| 7:45 PM - 8:45 PM
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Thursday, June 5
| 8:30 AM - 9:45 AM
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ARC306 Choosing Communication Styles: SOAP/WS-* vs. REST
S320 A
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DAT302 Best Practices for Exception Handling and Defensive Programming in Microsoft SQL Server 2005 and 2008
S220 E
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| 10:15 AM - 11:30 AM
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DAT320 Building Location-Aware Applications in Microsoft SQL Server 2008: Introducing the Spatial Data Types
S310 A
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| 12:00 PM - 12:45 PM
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LUN22 Discover Ramp Up: How to Quickly and Easily Learn Microsoft Technology (Repeats on 6/6)
S230 E (DEV)
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| 1:00 PM - 2:15 PM
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DAT306 Automating and Analyzing with SQL Trace
S320 E
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WUX11-ILLR Microsoft Silverlight 2.0 Foundations (Repeated from 6/3)
ILL - Lab C
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| 2:45 PM - 4:00 PM
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OFC02-TLC Don't Be a Tool, Be a Better SharePoint Developer through Tools!
Green Theater 1
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OFC402 How to Use Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 As an Application Development Architecture
S320 E
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| 4:30 PM - 5:45 PM
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WUX314 AJAX Programming with the Microsoft AJAX Technologies
S320 C
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| 8:00 PM - 11:00 PM
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Attendee Party at Universal Studios
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Friday, June 6
| 8:30 AM - 9:45 AM
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BIN11-TLC Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Integration Services: From D'oh to Wow
Green Theater 2
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| 10:15 AM - 11:30 AM
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DAT316 Building Location-Aware Applications in Microsoft SQL Server 2008: Building Spatial Applications
S310 C
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TLA11-TLC Microsoft Visual Studio Tip of the Day
Blue Theater 2
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TLA309R Build Better Software: Tips and Tools to Improve Your Applications (Repeated from 6/5)
S210 B
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| 12:00 PM - 12:45 PM
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| 1:00 PM - 2:15 PM
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| 2:45 PM - 4:00 PM
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DVP10-TLC The Busy Microsoft .NET Developer's Guide to Rules and Rules Engines
Red Theater 1
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MBL311 Developing for the Windows Mobile 6.1 Home Screen
S230 G
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TLA311 Application Lifecycle Management with Microsoft Visual Studio Team System Code Name "Rosario"
S310 A
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| 4:30 PM - 5:45 PM
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OFC11-TLC Microsoft Office Excel and Excel Services
Green Theater 1
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44CO046 - Visual Studio 2008 and .NET Framework 3.5 Training
I was lucky enough to be invited to attend this three day course as a part of the Microsoft Partner Program.
My own approach to training encompasses books, training videos, Developer events , Conventions, Internet sites and, perhaps most importantly, 'hands on' experience. I don't ordinarily pay for training courses so this event was more than welcome.
The course covered:
LINQ
Workflow Services
Windows Presentation Foundation and ASP.NET AJAX Integration Key Features of Visual Studio Team System 2008 Database Edition The course was based on the excellent Visual Studio 2008 training kit (available from http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=7602397) and took place at at Xpertise's offices in Maidenhead.
Day #1: Fundamentals: Framework and Language Enhancements
- Lap around Visual Studio 2008 and .NET Framework 3.5
- What's new in C# 3.0?
- What's new in Visual Basic 9.0?
- .NET Language Integrated Query (LINQ)
- Using LINQ with Relational Data
- Lab#1: C# 3.0 / VB 9 – language extensions Lab
- Lab#2: C# 3.0 / VB 9 – LINQ Lab
- .NET Framework 3.x Enhancements
Day #2: Building Rich Client Experiences
- Introduction to Microsoft UX (User Interface)
- Introduction to ASP.NET AJAX
- Building Web Applications with Visual Studio 2008
- Lab#1: AJAX web
- Lab#2: Building Web Applications with Visual Studio 2008
- Windows Presentation Foundation 3.X
- Building Windows Presentation Foundation Applications in Visual Studio 2008 and Expression Blend
- Lab#3: Building WPF Applications with Visual Studio 2008 and Expression Blend
Day #3: Building Connected Applications and Visual Studio Team System 2008
- Introduction to WCF and WF in Visual Studio 2008
- WCF Enhancements in Visual Studio 2008
- Building Microsoft Windows Workflow Foundation Enabled Windows Communication Foundation Services in .NET Framework 3.5
- LAB1#: Option to choose one of the following 6 labs:
- Developing Dynamic , Data-driven Web Sites
- Introduction to WCF
- Introduction to WWF
- Developing Workflow Services
- Building AJAX/JSON services using WCF
- Syndication using WCF
- Overview of Visual Studio Team System
- What’s new in Visual Studio Team System 2008
- Visual Studio Team System DB SKU in VS2008
- Team Build
- Version Control
- Testing using Visual Studio Team System; including demonstrations of
- Unit tests
- Web Tests
- Load Tests
- Analysis Tests
Cool, way too much information to cover in this blog but an excellent course (that ties in well to the downloadable training kit and associated videos available on Channel 9).
Definitely recommended!
http://www.xpertise.co.uk
Microsoft SOA and Business Process Conference
DAY ONE
Top news from the keynote this morning when Microsoft announced a new SOA product/strategy , codename "OSLO".
The vision will start to become reality in the next but one version of current products including Biztalk, Visual Studio, Workflow Foundation and Communication Foundation (ie essentially .NET 4.0). The recently coined 'Internet service Bus' also featured in discussions where Microsoft is promising to host key plumbing and routing services ("BizTalk Services") on the web, reassuringly the services will also be available via third party hosting and for internal hosting (an analogy made was to many ways that Exchange Server can be hosted today).
"Services" and "Modeling" are the two core foundation concepts behind the strategy, with consolidation across Microsoft's SOA related products also very much a part of the equation (Biztalk will utilize WF and WCF in the future, with current engines also supported). We got an early demo of Microsoft's high level modeling tool, referred to as "The Universal Editor", which aims to provide a single point of reference for all Microsoft's (and third party partners) future modeling tools.
Interestingly, having largely abandoned UML and Rational, Microsoft is embracing the concepts behind these with this new strategy. BPEL was mentioned alongside a modeling language capable of handling SOA concepts and feeding into a new execution engine - a future version of Biztalk!
Building on the technology available today, the “Oslo” advancements will be delivered through Microsoft server and tools products in five key areas:
Server. Microsoft BizTalk Server “6” will continue to provide a core foundation for distributed and highly scalable SOA and BPM solutions, and deliver the capability to develop, manage and deploy composite applications.
Services. BizTalk Services “1” will offer a commercially supported release of Web-based services enabling hosted composite applications that cross organizational boundaries. This release will include advanced messaging, identity and workflow capabilities.
Framework. The Microsoft .NET Framework “4” release will further enable model-driven development with Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) and Windows Workflow Foundation (WF).
Tools. New technology planned for Visual Studio “10” will make significant strides in end-to-end application life-cycle management through new tools for model-driven design of distributed applications.
OSLO Repository. There will also be investments in aligning the metadata repositories across the Server and Tools product sets. Microsoft System Center “5,” Visual Studio “10” and BizTalk Server “6” will utilize a repository technology for managing, versioning and deploying models.
More information is available here:
There is also a new top level Microsoft SOA site here:
Don Ferguson is (was) an IBM Fellow and Chief Architect of Websphere at IBM. It was interesting to hear him talking about his hopes for the future, having influenced things so deeply at IBM he is now perhaps in a strong position to influence an 'architecture of compatibility' across both camps. He spoke with enthusiasm about Microsoft's replication of IBMs reference architecture "Stock Trading" application (Essentially both the front and back end parts of both the Java - IBM Websphere version and Microsoft's MS.Net version being completely interchangeable with only minimal configuration changes). An impressive example of SOA architecture at its most compelling!
DAY TWO
SOA Governance
Excel: Software + Services
Alan Josephson has created custom Office Business Application solutions for clients in the financial, insurance and energy sectors.
Alan talked us through a scenario where an organisation with a high usage of Excel had utilised Excel Services to streamline an existing process which had previously involved the integration of many different workbooks. Use of 'XML mapping' to data from various back end systems was leveraged alongside a custom VSTO component with management of the spreadsheets through Sharepoint (MOSS). What was interesting about Alan's talk was how well he was able to leverage the client application, for instance using a custom tool to interact with back end web services, but also subsequently providing additional processing on the server (using both Excel Services and OpenXML).
Subsequently, and as a direct result of the success of this application the organisation 'retooled' to make Enterprise wide use of the platform.
Alan also has an interesting article “Microsoft Office as a Platform for Software + Services” in the current issue of The Microsoft Architecture Journal.
Visual Studio 2008
Although the official release is next February (alongside Windows Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008) we got "unconfirmed" confirmation that VS2008 is ready for release - and will be available probably sometime towards the end of November!
COOL!
DAY THREE
iPhones
Cripes! Every fourth person in the room has an iPhone! I have had half a dozen people at the conference ask me how I get on with mine, I'm not an 'Apple fanboy' by any means, but this is a very nicea product. Last Sunday's release of the one click unlocking hack (jailbreakme.com) is certainly also a factor. Apple will be selling more phones as a result and I guess AT & T will be losing potential revenue. The customer gets choice at the end of the day which cannot be a bad thing.
The Big Picture
By now it is clear that OSLO has the potential to become the new 'business Internet'. Certainly anyone who is trading B2B on the Internet will be interested in the potential of this technology.
To a certain extent though, it is very early days and a case of 'if we build it they will come' but concerns will surely be around 'you can take a horse to water ..'.
In the end the potential is pretty compelling. To my mind it has the potential to be the next significant business oriented (though not exclusively so) technology to join the Internet, not just a 'Flash' or a 'DHTML' (not to belittle these great technologies) but more on the grander scale of an HTTP, WWW or XML!!!
Kudos to Microsoft.
Top Gadgets XMAS 2007
Cribbed from kenradio.com - a list of top gadget wants for XMAS 2007:
- HD-capable flat screen TVs were number one with a bullet among all population subgroups with 35% of mentions. Interestingly, most of those HD sets will not deliver true HD to their owners, as only 2% also intend to get a HD box from their cable or satellite company (ranked at #20 on the list).
- Apple’s iPhone was ranked #15 overall. The hottest Apple-branded product was a laptop, ranked #11 overall and #9 among women.
- While no individual Apple product ranked higher than #11 on the wish lists, when combined, Apple-branded technology products make it to the top 5 overall with one-in-six considering purchase, suggesting strong potential holiday season for the company.
- Men and women had six items in common in the top 10—the rest were unique by gender. Sony PS3 and Xbox 360 were on the top 10 list of men but did not make it to the top 10 list of women. On the other hand, TiVo/DVR and Apple laptops were in the top 10 for women but did not show up on men’s wish lists for the holidays.
- Laptops were preferred over desktop PCs 2-to-1 among those 18-34. Nintendo Wii, Sony PS3 and Xbox 360 were all on 18-34 lists—Nintendo Wii was the highest ranked console, ranked #8 overall, edging out Sony PS3 which came in at #9. Xbox was ranked #12.
- Digital cameras are popular across all age groups—ranked #2 or #3 in all age or gender groups.
- GPS navigation for cars is mainstreaming—it was ranked #5 item among men and #7 among women.