Back from Goa

As a part of our annual outings had gone to Goa and my native place near the coastal city of Karwar...Truly God's own country I would say...Refreshing air, rejuvenating environment and loads of simplicity...You end up thinking ..whether how we(urban) people end up with all these complications in front of the simple life people lead in villages..Fully Geo friendly and optimized for the basic needs of man, resources are used only to the extent absolutely needed and rest of the nature thrives ..
Now back to the city and the madness around Mumbai..Start work soon..

Telerik RADTabStrip's weird behavior

Recently I have come across a very strange behavior in the Telerik RADTabStrip. A perfectly fine working code base suddenly started having a "Freeze" behavior in 2 out of the 4 environments we have. What I mean is, the TabStrip just locks up on the first load. Once there is a postback on the page, it starts working perfectly fine as if nothing had happened.
We tried resorting to all the typical tricks that Telerik has recommended and some of the settings that the Forum visitors asked us to use but to no avail. Some ideas were around validation, others around naming the user control and some around checking the JS/CSS issues...NOTHING! as yet..
Wonder if anyone can help me..

Meanwhile India whitewashed the NZ series and now head to SA. Lets see what kinda duel we have in store there...Hmmm!

Latest Status on Oslo...Oslo, Quadrant and the Repository is dead, long live “M”?

In October 2007, Microsoft introduced “Oslo” as the codename for a set of technical investments to apply model-driven principles to building applications and services. Since that announcement, many of those investments have shipped in products such as the .NET Framework, Windows Server AppFabric and Windows Azure AppFabric. This note is an update on the three “Oslo” investments that have yet to ship: the “Oslo” repository, “Quadrant”, and “M.”


Microsoft created the “Oslo” repository to make the model of a system or application easily accessible without relying on application-specific machinery to consume or query those models. The “Oslo” repository achieved this by storing the models for applications and systems in a shared SQL Server relational database.
Over the past year, customer feedback prefering a more loosely-coupled approach; specifically, an approach based on a common protocol and data model  rather than a common store has forced MSFT to shut down Quadrant and the Repository.  The momentum behind the Open Data Protocol (OData) and its underlying data model, Entity Data Model (EDM), shows that customers are acting on this preference.

With OData, Microsoft has enabled access to information across a growing number of technologies, data sources, and tools, including .NET Framework, Visual Studio, Microsoft Excel Power Pivot, SQL Server Reporting Services, SharePoint 2010, Windows Azure storage, and Codename “Dallas.”
With EDM, they have created a common abstract model for data that can be represented in multiple forms (XML-based EDMX/CSDL, C# or Visual Basic classes, visual designers, OData metadata) to simplify the creation and sharing of models.

Microsoft created a language codenamed “M” for defining schema, constraints, queries, and transformations. While they used “M” to build the “Oslo” repository and “Quadrant,” there has been significant interest both inside and outside of Microsoft in using “M” for other applications. Microsoft is continuing their investment in this technology and will share our plans for productization once they are concrete.

MS Tech breakup

As I continue to look into areas that will be growth islands in the MS domain, following topic come to mind:

• MS Cloud services (Azure)
• MS Web Platform
• MS SOA based technologies
• SQL BI

Wondering if there are any other ones at a high level..

WCF 4.0

As we encounter more and more weird issues in WCF, plan to get into what .NET 4.0 offers in this space to check if some of those features can be addressed to resolve the problems we are getting..

Happy Diwali

Wishing everybody a very Happy and Prosperous Diwali..May the festival of lights bring cheer in everyone's life and destroy all bad things..

Out with kids

While most of my posts have been about work, technology and experiences took a break today to report an evening with the kids on the beach. T'was a lot of fun..

VS 2010 and .NET 4.0

While looking for new features in VS 2010 and .NET 4.0, we came across the following set that helps us  in Project execution:
Managed Extensibility Framework
The Managed Extensibility Framework (MEF) is a new library in the .NET Framework 4 that helps you build extensible and composable applications. MEF enables you to specify points where an application can be extended, to expose services to offer to other extensible applications and to create parts for consumption by extensible applications. It also enables easy discoverability of available parts based on metadata, without the need to load the assemblies for the parts. Check Managed Extensibility Framework Overview and Managed Extensibility Framework. For a list of the MEF types, see the System.ComponentModel.Composition namespace.
Parallel Computing

The .NET Framework 4 introduces a new programming model for writing multithreaded and asynchronous code that greatly simplifies the work of application and library developers. The new model enables developers to write efficient, fine-grained, and scalable parallel code in a natural idiom without having to work directly with threads or the thread pool. The new System.Threading.Tasks namespace and other related types support this new model. Parallel LINQ (PLINQ), which is a parallel implementation of LINQ to Objects, enables similar functionality through declarative syntax. See Parallel Programming in the .NET Framework.

ASP.NET

• Core services, including a new API that lets you extend caching, support for compression for session-state data, and a new application preload manager (autostart feature).
• Web Forms, including more integrated support for ASP.NET routing, enhanced support for Web standards, updated browser support, new features for data controls, and new features for view state management.
• Web Forms controls, including a new Chart control.
• MVC, including new helper methods for views, support for partitioned MVC applications, and asynchronous controllers.
• Dynamic Data, including support for existing Web applications, support for many-to-many relationships and inheritance, new field templates and attributes, and enhanced data filtering.
• Microsoft Ajax, including additional support for client-based Ajax applications in the Microsoft Ajax Library.
• Visual Web Developer, including improved IntelliSense for JScript, new auto-complete snippets for HTML and ASP.NET markup, and enhanced CSS compatibility.
• Deployment, including new tools for automating typical deployment tasks.
• Multi-targeting, including better filtering for features that are not available in the target version of the .NET Framework.

Aussies series

Was hoping to see a nice contest with the Oz team but rain has again played a spoilsport at Goa..Vizag match was fun...Waiting for the match to start...

CMS Options

While discussing with a colleague over what the different choices for a present day CMS systems were, I discovered a nice .NET 4.0 based package Composite C1. This has been now convered into a free open source web CMS.

http://www.composite.net/C1.aspx

CS 2009 Articles

Some articles that I found interesting on the CS 2009 front. Hosted on MOSS 2007 the CS webparts while a cumbersome at times can provide a lot of relief.
Introducing Commerce Server 2009, including what's new in Commerce Server 2009

Introducing Commerce Server 2009
Creating Commerce Server 2009 Web applications, integrating Commerce Server 2009 with other applications, and extending Commerce Server 2009 functionality
Development
Learn about the new, out-of-the-box Default Web site and how Web Parts work in Commerce Server 2009
SharePoint Commerce Services
Documentation about programming with the Commerce Server 2009 platform
Development
Deploying Commerce Server 2009- Deploying Commerce Server 2009
Terms used in Commerce Server 2009 - Glossary

MS CRM 5.0

Microsoft Dynamics CRM is a multi-lingual Customer Relationship Management software package developed by Microsoft. Out of the box, the product focuses mainly on Sales, Marketing, and Service (help desk) sectors, but Microsoft has been marketing Dynamics CRM as an XRM platform and has been encouraging partners to use its proprietary (but .NET based) framework to customize it to meet many different demands.

Some new features in MS CRM 5.0:
http://demiliani.com/blog/archive/2008/11/11/6526.aspx

Leaning past 3 days

Some new things I learnt in the last 3 days:
The site which outlines most of the highly scalable projects/sites:
http://highscalability.com/
This site discusses the arch of the following sites

• YouTube
• Flickr
• Amazon
• Google
• Plenty of Fish

For comparison of features between the basic, standard and enterprise versions of SharePoint :
http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/en-us/buy/Pages/Editions-Comparison.aspx

Telerik RADAJAXManager slow at ihttpasynchandler.beginrequest

We are experiencing an issue with the AJAX calls getting slow while using the RADAJAXManager and the AVICode analysis of the dump shows slowness in the IHttpAsyncHandler BeginRequest. This is for a specific project. Similar implementations done on other projects is not causing any probs...Investigating..

Two updates in the Program I am working

While resolving some of the FxCop issues tht we encountered in the program, we were trying to use the GlobalSuppression.cs file for obviously...suppressing the errors and were having some issues. Interestingly I personally did not find a lot of places where global suppression was being explained..So here goes some places we visited / used to get it working:
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/codeanalysis/archive/2006/12/28/faq-what-is-the-globalsuppressions.cs-globalsuppressions.vb-file-and-why-is-it-needed-is-it-possible-to-change-the-name-of-this-file-david-kean.aspx

http://dansen.wordpress.com/2008/04/15/suppressing-code-analysis-rules/

Another area we are seeing is the "Please wait while scripts are loaded" message. Typical suspects are JS issues, big JS/CSS sizes etc...A good JS debugger tool for ie should help..Firebug anyone?
This did help us to narrow down on the piece of JS script that was causing this error to come up..Removed that and BINGO!.

Sandboxed vs Farm

Nice article on "Developing, Deploying, and Monitoring Sandboxed Solutions in SharePoint 2010"
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/ee335711.aspx

For those who donno about Sandboxed solutions, some primer:
One of the many challenges in SharePoint solutions is striking a balance between creating solutions and deploying them in a way that you can trust will not damage or impair the SharePoint farm. Farm administrators are responsible for maintaining the health and integrity of the SharePoint farm, and often this means putting complicated, time-consuming processes in place to test and validate solutions deployed to the farm. This need is counter to the rapid application model used to create SharePoint solutions, and it complicates the deployment of third-party solutions. A new feature in SharePoint 2010, called sandboxed solutions, addresses many of these concerns, enabling farm administrators to feel comfortable that the SharePoint farm is safe, giving site collection administrators the authority to manage the applications in their site collection, and providing developers with the flexibility to create solutions they know will be deployed in a safe and rapid manner.

RBS Storage

Overview of Remote BLOB Storage (SharePoint Server 2010)

This article is a conceptual overview of how RBS works with Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Express and Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Express. It contains important information about RBS features and providers. We strongly recommend that you read this article before you implement RBS.

Install and configure Remote BLOB Storage (RBS) with the FILESTREAM provider (SharePoint Server 2010)
This article describes how to install and configure RBS and implement the FILESTREAM provider for use with SharePoint Server 2010.

Install and configure Remote BLOB Storage (RBS) without the FILESTREAM provider (SharePoint Server 2010)
This article describes how to install and configure RBS without using the FILESTREAM provider.

Set a content database to use Remote Blob Storage (RBS) (SharePoint Server 2010)
This article describes how to set a content database to use RBS. You must already have RBS installed to perform these procedures.

Migrate content into or out of Remote BLOB Storage (RBS) (SharePoint Server 2010)
This article describes how to migrate content into or out of RBS, or to a different RBS provider.

Disable Remote BLOB Storage (RBS) on a content database (SharePoint Server 2010)
This article describes how to disable RBS in a SharePoint Server 2010 environment.

Governance in SharePoint

As promised, trying to ensure that I learn and document something new everyday.
Today trying to document whatever I can recollect about our recent Governance especially performance engineering techniques in SharePoint. Firstly there are several usual tools AVICode, YSlow, HttpWatch, Fiddler + NExpert that have been a boon. Knowing the areas to be compressed, Minified or corrected due to repeated/failed calls is invaluable.

Another tool that helps a lot,  RPO (Runtime Page Optimizer) from Aptimize.
An interesting sight for overall Governance in SharePoint is :
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/office/sharepointserver/bb507202.aspx

A new lesson a day

While I have been lazy in my blog posting, I have tried to keep this as updated as possible based on the time I get. I have come to realize that I need to be more proactive and start following the "Something new each day" axiom. And more importantly, as I have recently learnt, document what I learn. It could be anything - Technology, business, Religion, Politics....anything..a titbit here and there goes a long way.
"Only those people who documented, made it big" a birdy tells me and so I have decided to at least dedicate 10 mins each day to documenting this fact. Lets see how far I get.
Today's post is around: Startups around Cloud computing...


Altor Networks -

They tackle the challenge of security posed for virtualized datacenter infrastructure - through a virtual firewall/IPS system - that mitigates risks to virtualized and cloud-based applications and data.

Appirio - 

It bills itself as a provider of “both products and professional services that help enterprises accelerate their adoption of the cloud.” The company’s strategy is to focus on existing platforms, such as Google Apps, Amazon Web Services and Salesforce CRM, and provide tools and services that help customers leverage those platforms.

Some useful SharePoint links

Articles and White Papers for SharePoint Server
http://msdn.microsoft.com/hi-in/office/ee534017(en-us).aspx

MSS 2010 links
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff598603(office.14).aspx

Exam 70-576 requirements

Creating an Application Design (19%)

• Evaluate application data access and storage: 6 ways to save data in SharePoint SharePoint List and relationships, Document Library, SQL Database, BCS, web service, file system, remote BLOB storage, and all other external data sources

• Identify artifacts from application requirements: Web parts, event receivers, list definitions, list templates, workflows, site definitions, custom actions, content types, site columns, mapping artifacts to application requirements
• Select a deployment model:
  Identifying artifacts and execution appropriate for sandbox and farm (i.e. GAC vs. BIN) implementation, designing solutions for single server or multi-server environments, dividing artifacts between sandbox and farm
• Select the appropriate execution method:
  In-page, workflow, event receiver (asynchronous vs. synchronous), timer job, and service application, selecting which logic execution model to use for a problem, determining where code or artifact runs.

Designing UX (17%)

• Determine presentation page type:
  Web Part page, application Page, publishing page, page layout, static page.
• Determine SharePoint visual components:
  Web parts, silverlight, AJAX, ribbon, visual web parts, delegate controls, custom field types, dialog.
• Plan branding strategy:
  Determining usage of themes, templates, enforce consistency via site definitions, master pages and page layouts, determining usage of CSS styles and JavaScript, designing.
• Design application customization strategy:Supportable customizations allowed through SharePoint UI, SharePoint Designer 2010, VS 2010 (site columns, content types, page customization, themes, page layouts, personalization)
• Design navigation strategy
  Identify inclusion of navigational items (global/current/custom), consume an existing site map provider vs. create a custom provider, determine depth and inclusion of pages/sites, dynamic vs. static navigation, consume an existing navigation control vs. create a custom navigation control
• Managing Application Development (18%)
• Design for localization and globalization:
  Use and implementation of resource files, variations (content creation and workflow, multilingual content), selecting locales, date and time, regional settings, RTL vs. LTR.
• Develop a security approach
  Authentication (NTLM, Kerberos, Forms-based Authentication, claims, Single Sign-On, Anonymous), authorization (SharePoint groups, AD groups, claims, permission levels) enterprise-wide security policies.
• Define application configuration approach
  Defining "web.config" modifications, Lists as a configuration option, Property bags, declarative vs. programmatic, SP persisted objects.
• Optimizing SharePoint Application Design (15%)
  
  Optimize page performance:View State, Inline JS, Inline CSS, HTML output, AJAX, Client side cache, .NET cache, BLOB Cache, Session State, IIS compression.
• Optimize data access:SPQuery, SPSiteDataQuery, Large lists, Search (managed properties), SharePoint 2010 query throttling, Client object model vs. web service/rest/SOAP/RPC, Linq.
• Design for logging and exception handling
  Determining appropriate level of logging to include in a custom code project, Evaluating SharePoint log data, Instrumenting code to improve the ability to maintain the system, Determining when exceptions are raised, error values returned, and what should be written to the SharePoint ULS log, Debugger, and Event log.
• Identify and Resolve deployment issues
  Single server vs. farm vs. multi-farm, infrastructure vs. content database, web applications, application pools, feature activation failures, pushing applications to front end, security context, feature scope, feature dependencies.
• Analyze memory utilization
  Memory profiling, Disposal of SharePoint objects, Load testing, Identifying memory bottlenecks (hierarchy), Analyze ULS logs, Monitoring memory counters, ensure implemention of IDisposable on custom artifacts containing IDisposable members.
• Designing SharePoint Composite Applications (13%)
  Design external application integration
  Selecting appropriate BCS connection from Web Service, .NET Type, and SQL Connection, Defining authentication requirements, Defining solutions that include Office client applications.
• Determine data capture approach
  Evaluate when to use different forms technologies (InfoPath vs. ASP.NET), Office client, Silverlight, BCS, Infopath Forms Services.
• Design SharePoint information architectureContent types (local, global), Site columns, Site structure, Taxonomy (managed metadata).
• Design a workflow solution
  Workflow tool (Visio, SharePoint Designer, Visual Studio), Sequential vs. State Machine, Item vs. Site, Declarative vs. Code, custom actions.
• Designing SharePoint Solutions and Features (18%)
  Plan SharePoint Features
  Feature Sets, Feature Stapling, determine feature scope, Create a new Feature (vs. extending), activation dependencies, feature receivers.
• Plan SharePoint solution packaging
   Create a new Solution (vs. extending), Manage reference assemblies in a SharePoint WSP solution, solution sets, solution dependencies, solution targeting.
• Establishing application modification and version upgrade strategy
   Designing an artifact upgrade strategy, Feature and solution upgrade, Site upgrade, Versioning custom assemblies, Versioning workflows (new feature, new assembly version, new code), Resolving incompatible changes between dev and production.
• Develop a strategy for delivery of application modifications and existing data transformation
   Formulating a new version of custom code, Updating Web parts while retaining properties, connections and other user entered settings, Content maintenance, Developing a content upgrade strategy, Deployment configurations, Deploying modified code safely (data safe), Preparing scripts (PowerShell, EXE), packages (WSP, MSI), or installers

Best Practices for MOSS

http://spg.codeplex.com/

Exam 70-573

• Some Sites:

http://techtrainingnotes.blogspot.com/2010/05/sharepoint-2010-preparing-for-70-573-ts.html

Six ways to store data in MSS:
http://www.wictorwilen.se/Post/Six-ways-to-store-settings-in-SharePoint.aspx

• Working with the SharePoint User Interface (19%)
• Manage SPSite and SPWeb programmatically by using Visual Studio 2010

This objective may include but is not limited to: creating sub webs, referencing SPFiles, manipulating property bag, when to call Update, referencing SPContext, SPSite, SPWeb, SPSite.OpenWeb, SPWeb.Webs, feature activiation and deactivation

This objective does not include: trivial cases such as setting title and other loose properties of the objects

• Implement a dialog by using the Dialog FrameworkThis objective may include but is not limited to: Create dialogs from JavaScript or from server side, display dialogs.
• Create a custom ribbon object
  This objective may include but is not limited to: adding custom actions to the ribbon, customizing groups, customizing tabs, customizing the existing ribbon
• Customize navigation programmatically
  This objective may include but is not limited to: TopNav bar, quick launch, custom actionsThis objective does not include: custom menu controls, custom site map providers
• Create and apply branding to a SharePoint site
  This objective may include but is not limited to: applying custom master pages to content pages and application pages, placeholders, page layouts, programmatically working with themes, deploying CSS, CSSlink, ScriptLink
  This objective does not include: graphic design, creating a CSS
• Developing Web Parts and Controls (21%)
• Create Web Parts This objective may include but is not limited to: including properties, controls using Render vs. CreateChildControl, life cycle, visual, standard Web Parts,
  This objective does not include: trivial case where developer uses Visual Web Part project template
  Create connectable Web Parts
  This objective may include but is not limited to: Implement consumer/provider interfaces
• Debug Web Parts
  This objective may include but is not limited to: ULS log, and event log, debug.log tracing, developer dashboard
• Create and implement delegate controls
  This objective may include but is not limited to: overriding existing controls with lower sequence, developing and using .ascx files
• Developing Business Logic (19%)
• Implement a custom workflow in Visual Studio 2010This objective may include but is not limited to: work with inititation data or association data to create a SharePoint task, extend a workflow imported from SharePoint Designer 2010, use a HandleExternalEvent and CallExternalMethod to interact with a custom local service, work with inititation data or association data in a site workflow, corelation token.
  This objective does not include: trivial cases such as workflows with no custom actions, initiation data, association data.
• Create a custom workflow action
  This objective may include but is not limited to: create a custom SPD action, create and add a custom activity to a Visual Studio workflow, define an action.xml file.
• Create and implement event receiversThis objective may include but is not limited to: accessing event properties, list, item, site, email, avoiding recursion, cancelling events, choosing synchronization state
• Customize Enterprise Content Management (ECM)
  This objective may include but is not limited to: creating a content type that inherit from appropriate parent, creating and implementing a custom publishing field control that is page mode aware, activating a master page programmatically including token usage,
  This objective does not include: page layouts, formatting
• Create, implement and debug a Timer JobThis objective may include but is not limited to: configuration, programmatic scheduling, queueing, attaching debugger to the Timer service
• Create and modify Business Connectivity Service model in Visual Studio 2010This objective may include but is not limited to: create a BDC model in Visual Studio 2010, define insert, update and delete methods, create and read items, make data searchable
• Manage Users, Groups, Permissions
  This objective may include but is not limited to: SPGroups, SPUser, permission inheritance, all securable objects, SPRoleDefinition, SPRole, SPRoleAssignment.
• Working With SharePoint Data (22%)
• Access list data by using the Server object model This objective may include but is not limited to: SPQuery, LINQ, SPList, SPSiteDataQuery, schema management, working with a query Governor, create LINQ query that includes a join statement, SPQuery Vs. SPSiteDataQuery
• Access SharePoint Data by using WCF Data Services
  This objective may include but is not limited to: WCF ListData.svc, RESTFUL URLs conventions, create and use a client service reference.
• Access (CRUD) data by using the Client Object ModelThis objective may include but is not limited to: Javascript, .NET, Silverlight, Build Silverlight User Interface for SharePoint using Client Object Model, Query data by using CAML over the Client Object Model in Silverlight, non data API (site, web, list, access).
• Work with documents programmatically
  This objective may include but is not limited to: SPFile, SPFolder, SPVersion, upload document and set meta data.
• Work with the meta data
  This objective may include but is not limited to: Access data from user profiles, taxonomy, folksonomy.
• Extending SharePoint Search
  This objective may include but is not limited to: creating a custom query using full text query or keyword query, customize the look and feel of the search result using XSLT.
• Implement and debug code that executes in an alternative security context.This objective may include but is not limited to: create code that uses the RunWithElevatedPrivileges delegate (including debugging), create code that uses the System Account, create code that impersonate a different user.
• Create and modify a custom content type
  This objective may include but is not limited to: declaratively and programmatically creating and upgrading content type using Visual Studio 2010, modifying an exisiting content type, site columns.
• Stabilizing and Deploying SharePoint Components (19%)

•Manage a solution in Visual Studio 2010
This objective may include but is not limited to: modify the contained features in the solution, add an assembly that is not included in the visual studio solution, manage mapped folders for localization, sandbox and farm solutions, customize manifest.xml .

• Manage a feature by using Visual Studio 2010

This objective may include but is not limited to: upgrading, localizing, versioning, developing features, feature receivers (activating and installing) that interact with their parent object, customizing feature.xml
This objective does not include: features without elements

• Store and retrieve configuration data
  This objective may include but is not limited to: App config, web config, persisted object, list, xml, file system, cookies, property bag.
• Create a site definition by using Visual Studio 2010This objective may include but is not limited to: feature activation, site provisioning, localization.
  This objective does not include: list definitions and modules defined in ONET.xml, SharePoint Designer.
• Manage SharePoint object life cycle by using the Dispose API

This objective may include but is not limited to: SPWeb, SPContext, IDisposable, Try…Catch…Finally, using blocks

• Develop, debug, and deploy sandboxed solutionsThis objective may include but is not limited to: APIs that are allowed or not allowed in sandbox, use a full trust proxy

.

Exam 70-667 requirement

• Installing and Configuring a SharePoint Environment (25 percent)
• Deploy new installations and upgrades.This objective may include but is not limited to: running Visual Upgrade, performing an in-place upgrade, performing a database attach upgrade, analyzing a PreUpgradeCheck report, installing language packs, and scripting installations; analyzing ULS logs, installation error logs, and event logs to identify installation problems; and repairing installation errors
• Configure SharePoint farms.
  This objective may include but is not limited to: configuring inter-server communications, server roles, high availability, InfoPath Forms Services (IPFS), Alternate Access Mappings (AAM), external sites, host headers, and applying and managing patches
• Configure service applications.This objective may include but is not limited to: configuring service applications such as Business Connectivity Services (BCS), Access Services, Visio Services, Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007, user profiles, Microsoft Office Excel services, Managed Metadata Services (MMS), and IPFS
• Configure indexing and search.
  This objective may include but is not limited to: configuring FAST Search for SharePoint, crawl schedules, iFilters, crawl rules, content sources, scopes, managed properties, content types, search components, index partitioning, and federated search locations
• Managing a SharePoint Environment (26 percent)
• Manage operational settings.
  This objective may include but is not limited to: configuring logging, quotas, monitoring levels, health reports, security, and SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) integration
• Manage accounts and user roles.
  This objective may include but is not limited to: managing user accounts, group accounts, managed accounts, computer accounts, and service accounts; and delegating site collection administration
• Manage authentication providers.
  This objective may include but is not limited to: managing NTLM, Kerberos, claims-based, and forms-based authentication; and configuring Secure Store Service (SSS) and Active Directory Federation Services (AD FS)
• Deploying and Managing Applications (24 percent)
• Manage Web Applications.
  This objective may include but is not limited to: managing databases, Web Application settings, security, and policies
• Manage site collections.This objective may include but is not limited to: managing site collection policies, features, caching, and auditing; configuring site collection security; configuring multi-tenancy; and configuring site collection quotas and locks
• Deploy and manage SharePoint solutions.This objective may include but is not limited to: deploying and managing SharePoint solution packages, managing sandbox solutions, and managing user solutions

Maintaining a SharePoint Environment (25 percent)

• Back up and restore a SharePoint environment.

This objective may include but is not limited to: configuring backup settings; backing up and restoring content, search, and service application databases; detaching and attaching databases; and exporting lists and sites

• Monitor and analyze a SharePoint environment.
  This objective may include but is not limited to: generating health, administrative, and Web analytics reports; interpreting usage and trace logs; identifying and resolving health and performance issues
• Optimize the performance of a SharePoint environment.
  This objective may include but is not limited to: configuring resource throttling (large list management, object model override); configuring remote Binary Large Objects (BLOB) storage and BLOB and object caching; and optimizing services

SharePoint 2010

In an attempt to get an overall mastery over MSS 2010 I am planning a series of posts and sessions where people can understand the internals of SharePoint 2010 through self learning...Keep tuned..

Back in Mumbai....

Back in Mumbai..Feels great to be back amidst my own. The Mumbai monsoon is in full swing and so are the welcome back parties..Its goin to be back to work Monday..Fun stuff..

Yet another master blaster double ton

and he does it yet again..with so much style. No wonder he is the best ever.
That takes care of the SL tour. Thats it to report on that front.
The SharePoint 2010 learnings are goin on in full swing and at some point I would like to create a section on this blog dedicated to the learnings from that technology. For now, its onto the Whiteboard to understand the fundas..
Flying to India today..the long journey giving me the creeps as usual...

News this week..

With India getting some sound whipping in SL, none of the master batsmen really playing that well...bored of following cricket..
On personal front fly to India July 29th..Whohooooooooo..so thats great...Mumbai monsoons getting better..Some nice outings already planned..
While that is on, packing, finishing all tasks, meeting friends and attending send off lunches going on.
Interest rates hiked in India to curtail inflation and bring the economy back on track..Good news. Plane crash in Pak with low possibility of survivors..well...Bad news..
More to come about my activities for this week soon...

Other events

With the FIFA world cup declaring Spain as a winner..cricket not too much goin on..except Ind-SL series..me onto the HTML5 capabilities..Will blog about findings..

Union Carbide story

The decision from the Supreme Court on the 25+ yr old Union Carbide story has left the nation livid..2 yrs?? WTF does that mean? 15K people dead and lakhs affected and 2 yrs? Time for our law makers to brush up their basics and go for a makeover of archaic laws...

FIFA World cup fever

With the FIFA world cup fever gripping the world, it is time to wear the favorite team Tees...Stories of how a friend's companies staff have started adorning Brazil's shirts while trading or how another friend's colleagues gather around the TV set, their eyes fixated on an amazing goal...These are fun times...One of the very few times the world comes together..Cheers!

Now a US Citizen....

After 14 long yrs of arduous and curvy immigration path, we finally got our US Citizenship last week. Feels good!

Mangalore plane crash

Its been a terrible couple of days reading about the tragedy of the Mangalore plane accident. The heart rendering news article about the two young air hostesses from Mumbai and aspirations killed could not be forgotten...Makes you think ...lucky to be alive!

PerformancePoint Services

With the advent of SharePoint 2010 Insights, there has been more and more focus on how to get data in a meaningful and organized way so that business users can make sense of the enterprise data store. Whether it is Slicing and dicing the data with Excel services or front ending it with some fancy web parts in SharePoint or self servicing features of the BI Platform, Insights has the answer for you...

Added in this offering is also Visio Services, Better Chart, Decomp Tree, scorecard, Graphical controls etc and effective Admin functionalities...Digging deeper into this..

IPL and the related fiascos

While it has been great fun following your favorite teams during IPL 3, you cannot but think about the spirit of cricket or whether we are killing it by commercializing this game. Agreed you can keep the two separate by focusing on the game but with the dangerous mix of bolloywood with cricket - the two most dangerous passions in India are we creating a lethal dosage? So much money and so much exposure for these young 19 yr olds..Is this what we really want? Cannot escape this thought...

Certifications

I was looking at the latest stack of MOSS certifications and found these set of exams:

http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/certification/cert-sharepoint-server.aspx#tab2

The format seems pretty good and unlike a lot of other Microsoft exams there are no ready made cramsheets that I can see...As I understand it there are about 50-55 questions..multiple choice and you need to shoot straight from the hip...Interesting huh?

Comparison: Azure SQL and SQL Server

An interesting comparison between Azure data services and SQL Server :
http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9692818

Looking into MOSS 2010 Features

While looking at the different features of MOSS, and evaluating the sharper focus that 2010 brings came across these:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc303422(office.14).aspx

Wishing you a very Happy and Prosperous New Year

It was a very interesting yr...2009..Full of surprises, challenges, successes and the likes...Now lets see what 2010 has in store for us..
Hope its better, fuller and brings out the best in us on all fronts..
Enjoy!

Last week of the yr

As the last week of the yr draws to a close, nostalgic moments of this yr go past in the mind..Lots of interesting events, trips and important of all learnings from this yr..Lets ring out the old and ring in the new..

Happy XMas and a smashing new year ahead..

Zachman framework for enterprises

While organizations grapple with increasing complexity in business place as well as technology implementation, Zachman provides some help in organizing corporate assets in reusable format.

http://www.zachmaninternational.com/index.php/the-zachman-framework

ASP.NET MVC 2 BETA

ASP.NET MVC 2 Beta provides a new Model-View-Controller (MVC) framework on top of the existing ASP.NET 3.5 SP1 runtime.
The framework encourages developers to maintain a clear separation of concerns among the responsibilities of the application – the UI logic using the view, user-input handling using the controller, and the domain logic using the model. ASP.NET MVC applications are easily testable using techniques such as test-driven development (TDD).


http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=4817cdb2-88ea-4af4-a455-f06b4c90fd2c&displaylang=en

Money Transfer: The Top Mobile App of 2012?

An interesting piece of information surfeced on Business week regarding top mobile app by 2012. Transferring money apparently will be the most sought after feature in mobile banking

http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/techbeat/archives/2009/11/money_transfer.html

About Doloto

Doloto is an AJAX application optimization tool, especially useful for large and complex Web 2.0 applications that contain a lot of code, such as Bing Maps, Hotmail, etc. Doloto analyzes AJAX application workloads and automatically performs code splitting of existing large Web 2.0 applications. After being processed by Doloto, an application will initially transfer only the portion of code necessary for application initialization.

The rest of the application's code is replaced by short stubs -- their actual function code is transferred lazily in the background or, at the latest, on-demand on first execution. Since code download is interleaved with application execution, users can start interacting with the Web application much sooner, without waiting for the code that implements extra, unused features.

In our experiments across a number of AJAX applications and network conditions, Doloto reduced the amount of initial downloaded JavaScript code by over 40%, or hundreds of kilobytes resulting in startup often faster by 30-40%, depending on network conditions.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/devlabs/ee423534.aspx

Performancepoint in MOSS?

While investigating about the latest status of PerformancePoint came across the following links:
http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2009/01/23/microsoft-business-intelligence-strategy-update-and-sharepoint.aspx

What this means for us:"Microsoft is removing the barriers for customers who want to deploy a complete Business Intelligence solution, leveraging their existing investments in SharePoint Server, SQL Server, and Excel. Customers with SharePoint ECAL SA will have rights to deploy PerformancePoint Server today. PerformancePoint’s scorecard capabilities are certified by the Balanced Scorecard Institute/Palladium, building on the capabilities first introduced in Business Scorecard Manager. This means companies can implement their scorecards, following any methodology they choose, and accurately reflect this with their company strategy. The contextual dashboards allow organizations to create data-rich views that are interactive and change based on the users context. Organizations can create rich views that combine Excel, Excel Services, SharePoint Lists, Reporting Services, Analysis Services, and relational information to accurately reflect the business, measure the right information, and quickly understand changes in real-time.

This capability augments the team-based KPIs in SharePoint today, and utilizes the Excel Services environment, already allowing customers to share and reuse their workbooks in personal dashboards across the organization."

Saw USS NY

Today saw the USS NY sailing on the Hudson river from my office..This magnificent piece of work was built from the wreckage of the WTC.



At approximately 8:00 a.m., on November 2, the future USS NEW YORK will come to a standstill across from the World Trade Center site, dip her flag, and deliver a 21-gun salute. Members of the Fire Department of New York, the New York Police Department, Port Authority Police, members of the families of 9/11 victims and veterans will gather on the shore at the North Cove in the World Financial Center to return the salute.

SharePoint and alternative to BDC?

While doing some brainstorming on where SharePoint currently is and what exactly BDC does, there are so many ideas around what this could mean. Getting an overview of BDC and its metadata model at:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms546541.aspx
you can't miss thinking is there an alternative to BDC, using the same Runtime Object model exposed....Is there a plug in solution out there that could do that?

Visit to the Statue of Liberty

A visit to the Statue of Libery today :



Amazing piece of sculpture. It was apparently gifted to the US by France on the occasion of 100 yrs celebration for declaration of independence.
Standing on Liberty Island in New York Harbor, it welcomes visitors and immigrants traveling by ship Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi sculpted the statue.Maurice Koechlin—chief engineer of Gustave Eiffel's engineering company and designer of the Eiffel Tower engineered the internal structure. Eugène Viollet-le-Duc was responsible for the choice of copper in the statue's construction and adoption of the repoussé technique, where a malleable metal is hammered on the reverse side. Amazing piece of art!

DI using Unity Application block

A nice article on DI using Unity Application block is at :

http://computerauthor.blogspot.com/2009/09/di-using-unity-application-blocks.html#SolvingproblemusingUNITYblock

Application Architecture Guide 2.0

The application architecture guide provides design-level guidance for the architecture and design of applications built on the .NET Framework. It focuses on the most common types of applications, partitioning application functionality into layers, components, and services, and walks through their key design characteristics. This guide is a collaborative effort between patterns & practices, product teams, and industry experts.

http://www.codeplex.com/AppArchGuide

More on this soon..

Visit to Lake Placid

Over the last weekend, we went to Lake Placid, a beautiful place upstate NY..


Mirror lake :



Veterans Memorial:



From Whiteface:



Winter Olympics training:

About Newport and the surroundings

A little bit about Newport, the place I stay and the surroundings now..
Below a nice snapshot of this place taken from the Hudson that borders on this city. The building with a weird top is my office..



To get a true flavor of Newport you should visit, http://www.newportnj.com/
Nice place this for families and the like..Following are some more things to see..

The mall:



Near Pavonia:

Oslo roars ahead

Microsoft's strategy to have MDA into the mainsteam surges ahead with a big push into Oslo..Here the site that talks about it all:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/oslo/default.aspx

Performance Engineering and architecture

I read some really nice article on performance aspects at:
http://www.codeproject.com/KB/aspnet/SitePerf.aspx

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms998530.aspx

http://www.codeproject.com/KB/aspnet/10ASPNetPerformance.aspx

Some really nice facts of the performance and scalability aspects were brought forth by these articles.

Happy Diwali to one and all

This is my favorite time of the year..Not that I am overly religious but being an absolute foodie..its an amazing time of the year to be gulping sumptous foods, sweet dishes and the like..The festival of lights inspires one and all...Destroying darkness and lighting the sky with crackers/fireworks of different colors..The smell of newness everywhere and shoppers going crazy for the festive season..
Amazing experience..!!

Happy Diwali to all..May this new year bring happiness and enrich you with health, wealth and everything you wish for...

Something new I learnt today...

While there are many aspects of code quality checks that I have seen over the years, learnt something new today regarding Javascript code checks..
www.jslint.com is a nice tool to check the Javascript you have in code and it tells you what could be potential issues in it..Interesting!

Enterprise Architecture

Coming back to my original love..Enterprise Architecture and where exactly this field fits in the current scheme of things. Which role in a company is most suitable to handle this?CIO/CEO? Numerous companies big and small have tried to get their hands around this field and have still not got there..
Agreed that this strategy is going to be slightly different for different companies/fields but a basic framework more tighter than Zachman and TOGAF seems to be the need of the hr.
Despite governance software (read SOA),looks like companies like HP are still trying to figure how to get to the pinnacle...IBM has some ideas but aligning IT strategy and business goals remains a challenge even now..

Lets see who gets there first ..
More thoughts to follow...

Power in the interstices

As more and more R & D is being done in the innovation that lies in the interstices between disciplines/fields, the medici team is busy taking examples of practical applications in this area. Some of them include:
1. Volvo’s Vision for Collision Safety Based on the African Grasshopper’s Vision

2.Fighter aircrafts and cross-country skiing

3. Bionics and the how robots are getting influenced with cognition, regenerative medicine and bioengineering..

While majority of the people in the world continue to live in their own silos, it is people who think differently, think in the interstices that seem to be getting it right...
Interesting stuff..

Living a perfect day

One of Robin Sharma's best thoughts: (IMHO)

What was the best day you've had in the past 12 months? What made it so special - and unforgettable? What things were you doing that time that gave you those superior results? Once you know what works, you can set about doing them with greater consistency. And consistency is the generator of Mastery.

Here are 4 recommendations for a perfect day:

1. Get up early. Getting up early is a gift you give yourself - once you install the habit. Yes, that's hard at first but after a few weeks you'll have more time for yourself every morning - time to think/read/visualize/exercise and set yourself up for superb results.

2. Run a schedule. I write more about this in The Greatness Guide where I say: "The things that get scheduled are the things that get done." Success and happiness don't happen by accident. No, they occur through conscious choice. Schedule your priorities and the most important things in your life so you can get them done.

3. Stand in Gratitude. While there are so many things you could do to ensure a great/perfect day, I find spending even 5 minutes in gratitude reshapes the way I perceive my day. Please remember, stress and gratitude can't share the same room. And you'll see more of what you pay attention to. So focus on best and block out the rest.

4. Growth. Much as we resist change, the fact is human beings are happiest when we are growing. To live perfect days, do things that move you out of your comfort zone and into your Discomfort Zone. A day with zero growth is a day unfully lived. Fears faced die speedy deaths.

Steve Jobs 10 magical principles

About the 10 things Steve Job thinks:

#10. On Management

My job is to not be easy on people. My job is to make them better. My job is to pull things together from different parts of the company and clear the ways and get the resources for the key projects.

And to take these great people we have and to push them and make them even better, coming up with more aggressive visions of how it could be.

#9. On Hiring

Recruiting is hard. It’s just finding the needles in the haystack. You can’t know enough in a one-hour interview.

So, in the end, it’s ultimately based on your gut. How do I feel about this person? What are they like when they’re challenged? I ask everybody that: ‘Why are you here?’ The answers themselves are not what you’re looking for. It’s the meta-data.

#8. On Firing

We’ve had one of these before, when the dot-com bubble burst. What I told our company was that we were just going to invest our way through the downturn, that we weren’t going to lay off people, that we’d taken a tremendous amount of effort to get them into Apple in the first place — the last thing we were going to do is lay them off.

#7. On a CEO succession Plan

I mean, some people say, ‘Oh, God, if [Jobs] got run over by a bus, Apple would be in trouble.’ And, you know, I think it wouldn’t be a party, but there are really capable people at Apple.

My job is to make the whole executive team good enough to be successors, so that’s what I try to do.

#6. On Product Strategy

It’s not about pop culture, and it’s not about fooling people, and it’s not about convincing people that they want something they don’t. We figure out what we want. And I think we’re pretty good at having the right discipline to think through whether a lot of other people are going to want it, too. That’s what we get paid to do.

We just want to make great products. (I think he means “insanely great products!“)

5 Leadership Mantras

#5. On Leadership

So when a good idea comes, you know, part of my job is to move it around, just see what different people think, get people talking about it, argue with people about it, get ideas moving among that group of 100 people, get different people together to explore different aspects of it quietly, and, you know – just explore things.

#4. On Evangelism

When I hire somebody really senior, competence is the ante. They have to be really smart. But the real issue for me is, Are they going to fall in love with Apple? Because if they fall in love with Apple, everything else will take care of itself.

They’ll want to do what’s best for Apple, not what’s best for them, what’s best for Steve, or anybody else. (this actually reiterates my oft-repeated mantra of “ubiquitous evangelism” in companies)

#3. On Focus

People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully.

#2. On the User Experience

Our DNA is as a consumer company — for that individual customer who’s voting thumbs up or thumbs down. That’s who we think about. And we think that our job is to take responsibility for the complete user experience. And if it’s not up to par, it’s our fault, plain and simply.

#1. On Creativity

That happens more than you think, because this is not just engineering and science. There is art, too. Sometimes when you’re in the middle of one of these crises, you’re not sure you’re going to make it to the other end. But we’ve always made it, and so we have a certain degree of confidence, although sometimes you wonder.

I think the key thing is that we’re not all terrified at the same time. I mean, we do put our heart and soul into these things.

NY NY...

Rched NY a week back and finally the jet lag is over. Will not walk like a zombie everywhere now..Planning to get my wife and kids here so that they can view the beautiful Manhattan skyline bang opposite my hotel room..Can't wait!

Oslo May CTP

I have been following Microsoft's modelling platform for some time...They have made a promising start with their Oslo initiative a CTP of which is available at :
http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9648442
Obviously there have been some issues reported around the compatibility of the Jan and the May CTPs but overall a good initiative.
More to come in this space soon...

Swine flu epidemic

With the number of swine flu cases multiplying manifold throughout the world, there is a fear that this might turn out to be the worst pandemic the world has seen in a long time. Recent news reports are suggesting that we might see at least a third of the Indians get affected by it in the next 2 yrs...Scary!..
Meanwhile the Indian health ministry will have to have its work cut out fast...Time is running out.

Terrorist incidents in India

A couple of serious bomb blasts ripped 2 of the fastest growing Indian cities over the past weekend. The blame game between state and union govt has started as to who was responsible for the security lapse and a "report" will be tabled soon about how this happened. Meanwhile, IT companies are gearing themselves for additional security checks and the Union govt has mooted providing CISF cover for IT Professionals. More info to follow...

Innovation - ideas, ideas, ideas

With so much noise around innovating....I think it would be a good idea to have at least 3-5 links in each of my posts talkin about some innovative ideas that people might have thought about every 2 weeks...So here's the link for today..

http://online.barrons.com/article/SB121158255162818565.html?mod=yahoobarrons&ru=yahoo&page=1

http://www.futurist.com/2007/12/13/beyond-web-20/

HP takes over EDS

There have been several articles written on this subject. Some of them as follows:

Can HP Whip EDS into Shape?at BusinessWeek (Thu, May 15)
Therese Poletti's Tech Tales: H-P's takeover of EDS will test Hurd's management chopsat MarketWatch (Thu, May 15)
HP and EDS Try a Tieupat BusinessWeek (Wed, May 14)
Hewlett-Packard Gets a Tummy Acheat Motley Fool (Wed, May 14)
HP and EDS: A chat with CEOs Mark Hurd and Ron Rittenmeyerat Fortune (Wed, May 14)
If HP Gets EDS, Smaller Rivals Can't Even It Up

I would like to put my take on this takeover in a separate article.

Performance and Domain Frameworks

Been busy reading up, understanding and implementing performance improvement kind of features for highly scalable enterprise systems. Especially lowering the time it takes to get responses back to the users from the server and client ends has been interesting..
Also, working on some Architectural framework for domain-specific areas.
Microsoft has published its take on some domains like Finance(Capital markets and Banking), Insurance and Financial information protection.

Microsoft BPM

Now that other vendors have been hot and heavy on BPM SOA convergence, obviously Microsoft does not want to be left behind...Some analysts have debated viewing MS as a BPM vendor..Here's David Chappell's take on it
http://download.microsoft.com/download/e/1/f/e1f30631-482e-43b5-a69f-036e31df0c81/Microsoft%20and%20BPM%20-%20Technical%20Overview.pdf

SOA BPM

These days I am concentrating on this space..More soon...

Stefan Thomke ...On Innovation...

Stefan Thomke of Harvard Business School has written a definitive book on the importance of experimentation. "Experimentation Matters" argues that every company’s ability to innovate depends on a series of experiments (successful or not), that help create new products and services or improve old ones. That period between the earliest point in the design cycle and the final release should be filled with experimentation, failure, analysis, and yet another round of experimentation. “Lather, rinse, repeat,” Thomke says. Unfortunately, uncertainty often causes the most able innovators to bypass the experimental stage.
In his book, Thomke outlines six principles companies can follow to unlock their innovative potential.

1. Anticipate and Exploit Early Information Through ‘Front-Loaded’ Innovation Processes
2. Experiment Frequently but Do Not Overload Your Organization.
3. Integrate New and Traditional Technologies to Unlock Performance.
4. Organize for Rapid Experimentation.
5. Fail Early and Often but Avoid ‘Mistakes’.
6. Manage Projects as Experiments.

Thomke further explores what would happen if the principles outlined above were used beyond the confines of the individual organization. For instance, in the state of Rhode Island, innovators are collaboratively leveraging the state's compact geography, economic and demographic diversity and close-knit networks to quickly and cost-effectively test new business models through a real-world experimentation lab.

Innovation and research

With so much focus being on innovation for increasing productivity and success, companies are finding more efficient ways to nurture innovative ideas and try to convert as many random creative thoughts into structure innovation vehicles. Obviously, thoughts, processes and technologies that break our existing norm need to be welcome and channeled correctly. There are some interesting thoughts around this which I plan to read upon in the coming days.

First entry from India

Its been a while since I last wrote...Moved to India and things been hectic since the last 1.5-2 months...Saw an interesting article today :
http://www.founderblog.com/

Virtual Labs

I have been working on a bunch of Virtual Labs for MOSS 2007 and BTS 2006...

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/traincert/virtuallab/office.mspx

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/virtuallabs/aa740373.aspx

ESB

Since this has become the new buzzword, I decided to read up some of the stuff on the internet that has been published in this sphere...I liked the way Wikipedia defines ESB http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterprise_service_bus While trying to see what Microsoft thinks is a good way to implement the ESB, I cam across the following article http://blogs.msdn.com/mikewalker/archive/2007/06/19/looking-for-microsoft-esb-guidance.aspx something I have been wanting to read in a long time...Thanks Mike Walker for the great insight

Synnovation...

Since I have been looking around for magazines, articles that talk about Innovation..another very good series I found was at :

http://www.eds.com/services/alliances/agility/synnovation/index.aspx

Some of these writers have given an indepth analysis of ways to innovate..Found some very nice info in these..

Innovations

Found an interesting book on innovation
http://www.themedicieffect.com/index.html

Frans Johansson has done a great job in explaining innovation. Good read!

WSE Unearthed

In an amazingly simplified series of articles about WSE, Scott Mitchell outlines the different enhancements that have been bundled with WSE..A must read I think(courtesy 4guysfromRolla):

Part 1 - Examines the basics of Web services, what Web services are, and the technologies and standards that serve as the underpinnings of Web services. (October 8th, 2003)
Part 2 - Examines creating Web services using Visual Studio .NET. Looks underneath the hood of the code created by VS.NET. (October 15th, 2003)
Part 3 - Examines creating a client application that consumes a Web service. Discusses the purpose and structure of a WSDL document, along with creating and using proxy classes to consume a Web service. (November 5th, 2003)
Part 4 - Examines the utility of Web services and common scenarios where Web services make sense. A business-oriented look at Web services. (November 19th, 2003)
Part 5 - Takes an in-depth look at XML serialization, which is the process of converting a data type, such as an integer, array, or custom class, into its XML representation, and back again. Every time a message is passed to or from a Web service, XML serialization transpires. (December 17th, 2003)
Part 6 - Looks at sending metadata to a Web method through the use of SOAP headers. Examines defining and accepting a SOAP header on the Web service end, and looks at sending a populated SOAP header from the client. (December 31st, 2003)
Part 7 - Examines how the incoming and outgoing messages to a Web service can be programmatically modified via SOAP Extensions. (January 21st, 2004)
Part 8 - Learn about the Web Service Enhancements (WSE) and Microsoft's free class library for implementing the WSE standards. (June 30th, 2004)
Part 9 - See how to implement UsernameToken authentication using the WSE 2.0 Toolkit. (July 14, 2004)
Part 10 - Learn how to send large amounts of data as attachments using DIME and WS-Attachments. (September 8th, 2004)

Sharepoint WebParts

Found an interesting set of articles for Sharepoint development:
ASP.NET 2.0 Web Part vs Sharepoint 2007 Web Parts
Resources
Sharepoint Web Parts Overview http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms432401.aspx
Windows SharePoint Services Web Part Infrastructurehttp://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms415560.aspx
Walkthrough: Creating a Basic SharePoint Web Parthttp://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms452873.aspx
Walkthrough: Creating Connectable SharePoint Web Partshttp://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms469765.aspx
Creating Web Parts in Windows SharePoint Services http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms367238.aspx
Working with the Windows SharePoint Services WebPart Class http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms473203.aspx
Channel 9 Video: Building ASP.NET Web Parts for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=192071
15 Seconds: Building Web Parts for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 http://15seconds.com/issue/060824.htm
15 Seconds: Building an ASP.NET 2.0 Web Part for Deployment to WSS V3.0 and MOSS 2007 - Part 1 http://15seconds.com/issue/060914.htm
Scott Guthrie (MSFT): Writing Custom Web Parts for SharePoint 2007 http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2006/09/02/Writing-Custom-Web-Parts-for-SharePoint-2007.aspx
Mark Kruger (SharePoint MVP): Great resource link site for almost everything Sharepoint http://www.sharepointblogs.com/mkruger/archive/2006/05/25/7570.aspx
If anyone has any great resources on comparisons between the two let me know I would be interested ...

Hmm....Mangoes now in the US

With the latest news that Indian mangoes are now available in the US, I am sure it has brought water to the mouth of at least some people..It's been a while since I tasted those Alphansoes...
Tasty stuff...:)

India - A Trillion dollar economy

As the dollar plumetted, I am sure lot of the economists were going "told you so"..As has been well known the strong dollar was not sustainable given the huge US deficits..but quietly behind the scenes a lesser known fact dawned. India has now become the 12th nation in the world to join the Trillion dollar economy club at least at these dollar levels..I had noticed that it was skirting at 900 bil levels for some time but never thot the D Day would come so soon..

Oh well...It has...Another sleeping giant has gotten up...

Really busy...

Have not been blogging as much as I would like to...Couple of reasons..Getting a project that was originally on a death march pretty much on track and keepin up with the latest in MSFT Tech.

PM has been kinda interesting off late as well...Patterns, Methodologies...I think I like those..

Will blog in detail about some of those soon..

PMP Certification and Technical Interview Quest

As mentioned in an earlier blog, looks like PM has come to be the most important title/role these days..With that in mind, I am taking some PMP Training classes and intend completing the certification by EOM April. Hopefully should work out fine.

Meanwhile I am also trying to create a small database of MSFT Technologies interview questions that will be helpful to everyone..

PMP Training

Hi,
Now Project Management seems to be the flavor of the day everywhere I see. Our company seems to be enroute to creating a pool of PMs who can help other depts manage their projects and processes. I will b out attending the PMP training at Hilton Computers Apr 2 - 6. Having done certain aspects of PM in CMMi I think it should not be that difficult. Lets see..

Orcas

Having played around VSTS for some time now(Beta 2, Tech refresh and the live one), I would love to see what MSFT has in store for the Orcas version. Apparently chief among their concentration areas are:

• Delivers innovative new programming language features, such as those found with in the .NET Language Integrated Query (LINQ)
• Enables designers and developers to work together more effectively than ever
• Enable Web developers to quickly build applications with the broadest possible reach and a rich, browser based client experience
  

I really hope MSFT can live upto its promise.

Case Study with MSFT

Apparently, we (SCI) was the first company that MSFT knows of, that got CMMi certified using the VSTS tool and the accompanying methodology. Interesting!
We have been invited to write a case study based on this...Should be interesting!

Project Server 2007 and MOPS 2007 POC

Our company is in the midst of doing 2 POCs for these products. Any comments on the gotchas of these softwares would be welcome.

Back from India...

I came back 2 days back and straight in the grind. Couple of interesting developments that happened in India...will write more about them soon.

Vibha

Since the time I had seen Vibha active again about 2 weeks ago...I have been wanting to participate in this org..Nice NGO...Check it out...

Sharepoint features

Here is an interesting article about new Sharepoint features:

http://www.sharepointblogs.com/dustin/articles/5235.aspx

So many new technologies!!!

With the advent of 2007 there is goin to be a plethora of applications that will flood the market that need good study.
Chief among them being
Sharepoint 2007
WWF 3.0
VSTS new version
Project Server 2007
Office 2007

Straight onto Real world

Now that the dept has achieved the Process Quality Goal, I went straight back to some pending work that I had like Working a very critical project that had several issues, getting team ready fpr PS2007 and newer version of VSTS (CMMi framework) as well as some other softwares that are getting ready to release.

Getting interested on reading about requirements gathering since thats one area we still need to work on...so long!

Hurrah! CMM Level 2

Hurrah!! After a lot of hardwork from the entire team, CMM Level 2 was achieved by our department. Microsoft's latest VSTS tool had a lot to do with the initial fillip and then we rolledup our sleeves and did the needful as well.

Hope we can continue the momentum..Now onto something new and exciting!

D-Day

Finally after going through some grueling sessions, we are at the last day/interview of our CMM level 2 process. It has been a challenging process and although I knew of our team's ability to handle pressure well..I was impressed with the calmness that our team members displayed as they handled the volley of questions hurled at them by the external appraiser..

Hope all goes well today.

About del.icio.us

I liked the idea about del.icio.us...This had been something that I was looking for in the past year or so...Bookmarks on the web is a great idea.

I have created mine at http://del.icio.us/advait_k

Getting closer to appraisal...

As we get jitters about getting so close to the CMMi Level 2 appraisal, there are some good news as well. Microsoft was inquisitive to know today how we used their methodology template to get Level 2 certification. I have a conference call with 4 people from the Pattern and Practices department and it should be interesting to have an article/ White paper about how SCI IT achieved level 2 using VSTS.

Been a while...

Its been a while since I last posted. The Company CMMi initiative is going really full steam and we hope to meet the Dec 4 deadline for CMMi interviews. T'will b interesting to see how we do to say the least.
Meanwhile I have grown some fancy to newer technologies like :
Office 12
Project Server 2007
WSS 3.O
Windows Workflow Foundation Services
.NET 3.O
Found an interesting blog about Software Return on Investment
http://blogs.msdn.com/arpans/archive/2006/11/11/return-on-investment-on-software.aspx

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CMMi Progress

We have made good amount of progress towards CMM Certification. The biggest obstacle in this process has been the lack of resources as well as getting the Configuration practice officially up. We have been doing a lot of things CM wise but putting it down on paper has been a tough job. Policy,Processes and plans have been updated. Now PMs just need to follow them correctly. Out of the 7 KPAs(Key Process Areas) I think we have nailed down REQM,PP,PMC,QA and CM nicely. The MA and SAM process areas are turning to be a challenge given the time that our team can dedicate towards these areas.
Lets see how we progress...

Certification

Amid all the issues that we faced during CMMi Certification I think it might b really worth putting all these pts together and post it so that it will help others who want to take this route..

CMMi

Our company is in the process of undergoing a CMMi certification for Software development life cycle. If anybody has gone through the pains or wants to know about the same, contact me at advaitk@gmail.com